Speaker 1: Meaning a man like this man letting butterfly, flapping his wing,
Speaker 1: big down in the forest, man and gonna cause the
Speaker 1: tree fall, letting five thousand miles away. Man, nobody seen
Speaker 1: nobody else. You don't need no man. You and you
Speaker 1: got bacted like that. Man, go blackly dang on the panela.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Man, you don't matter man anyway.
Speaker 4: All right, remis welcome to the Jay Burden Show for
Speaker 4: the first time ever.
Speaker 3: No thanks for having me on this so first time
Speaker 3: that I've ever been here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a little bit of context, guys. Uh, it's been
Speaker 4: a while since I've gone through this and due to
Speaker 4: some fileshare issues, Uh, I had remiss on about two
Speaker 4: weeks ago to record the next series in Berserk. We
Speaker 4: were kind of offset. So we decided did to do
Speaker 4: what I had prepared for, went through it, and then
Speaker 4: this is earlier in the narrative, so you will be
Speaker 4: listening to it first, but chronologically the next segment is
Speaker 4: going to be uh, you know, out afterwards, recorded first
Speaker 4: released second, So a lot of the kind of the
Speaker 4: rooms is we're going over that will be in the
Speaker 4: second part. Uh, So don't feel like this is super jumble,
Speaker 4: just some context there, but yeah, man, I'm glad to
Speaker 4: have you back on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate you having me. I love having I
Speaker 3: love having this discussion, and also you know you're a
Speaker 3: great host. Thanks. I think it's I think it's I
Speaker 3: think it's funny. I did I kind of like referenced
Speaker 3: this episode in the past, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Like when we Yeah, you know what I mean, as
Speaker 3: much as I could, I was like trying to like
Speaker 3: bake in some sort of like time shenanigans. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'll I'll discuss the things that I said last time,
Speaker 3: this time from the from the past, right. Yeah. I
Speaker 3: think especially this this part of this story is very
Speaker 3: close right to my heart, right, So I love talking
Speaker 3: about it. I love the discussion, and I think it's
Speaker 3: it's pertinent, you know these days, people people like this
Speaker 3: and these kinds of pains are are lessons for a reason,
Speaker 3: you know. So that's why I always say read fucking preserve. Yeah,
Speaker 3: one hundred percent. So just a couple of things. Obviously,
Speaker 3: somewhat similarly to the other episodes, I will be showing
Speaker 3: select panels this this this book is fairly graphic, right,
Speaker 3: so there's certain things I can't show every time I
Speaker 3: put these up, I include a link to where you
Speaker 3: can read them all for free.
Speaker 4: I recommend it. And yeah, the audience has been champing
Speaker 4: for this one, so let's get straight into it. So
Speaker 4: obviously we're through Black Swordsman, which was sort of a
Speaker 4: you know, a one shot. Everything from now on takes
Speaker 4: place in chronological order in the narrative, and right off
Speaker 4: the bat we are introduced to the birth of Guts.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So what we see is, and this is something I
Speaker 4: probably can't show, it's a little bit graphic. Is a
Speaker 4: mercenary company, right, all on horseback riding past this tree,
Speaker 4: just covered in corpses, right hanging from the tree, and
Speaker 4: one of the camp followers runs up a woman and
Speaker 4: sees that there's been a baby born from one of
Speaker 4: these bodies, right, a pregnant woman, hung baby, still alive.
Speaker 4: We get a little bit of context there that effectively
Speaker 4: this woman is sort of you know, one of the
Speaker 4: camp followers. She has a relationship with, you know, a
Speaker 4: character will track for the next couple episodes, and yep,
Speaker 4: no shock, right, this is Guts.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: What's interesting, you know, is he is technically saved, right
Speaker 4: as part of this mercenary band, but again more foreshadowing,
Speaker 4: one of the kind of nameless goons in the background says,
Speaker 4: you know, picking up a kid at a place like this,
Speaker 4: it's a bad omen right, he's cursed. Is something that
Speaker 4: will you know, continue to be relevant. So it moves
Speaker 4: forward a little bit. We see kind of Guts as
Speaker 4: a young man witnessing the horrors of war, and this
Speaker 4: woman who has sort of taken care of him dies
Speaker 4: horribly of the plague, again rendered in somewhat excruciating detail. Right,
Speaker 4: so quickly, you know, Guts moves into a role you know,
Speaker 4: as you know, it's sort of a guy in this
Speaker 4: mercenary company. It's like a squire, you know, yeah, exactly
Speaker 4: a squire. And we see him somewhat incidentally kill his
Speaker 4: first man at or witness his first I guess, killing
Speaker 4: at you know, six or seven.
Speaker 3: Right, it's not a child. He a child. I cannot
Speaker 3: be stressed enough. All of the things that happened here
Speaker 3: are happening to a child. This is a little little boy, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a it's a it's a it's a really really
Speaker 3: brutal introduction to the world that he lives in. Right,
Speaker 3: This is not the kind of thing that a little
Speaker 3: kid is obviously uh want to see. But this is
Speaker 3: his life. And I think, I think the very fact
Speaker 3: that this kid comes out like the name, guts all
Speaker 3: of it. Right, it's all so emblematic. Right, this kid
Speaker 3: is born from death. He has been surrounded by his
Speaker 3: whole life, basically from from from birth to to where
Speaker 3: he is in the story. Now, it's endless suffering, endless
Speaker 3: amounts of of the of the just the dark parts
Speaker 3: of reality. Right, this is no there's there is no
Speaker 3: he doesn't get a filter, he doesn't get you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, so many children, right, at least especially in
Speaker 3: our our era, right our time, it probably it sort
Speaker 3: of prides itself on separating children like almost like keeping
Speaker 3: them in a walled garden, right, And this story does
Speaker 3: not give this child this luxury, right, he does not
Speaker 3: have that. He he doesn't have any like you know,
Speaker 3: we're skimming a bit, right, and that's that's that's good.
Speaker 3: But the nature of the relationship that he has to
Speaker 3: the people who saved him is even that it's like
Speaker 3: it's there's there's almost no closeness, there's no warmth, the
Speaker 3: only warmth he ever really experienced. As a child, was
Speaker 3: with this woman who chose to pick him up in
Speaker 3: the first place. But she dies, really and she dies traumatically,
Speaker 3: and he watches it, you know what I mean. He
Speaker 3: sits there with her, which I think is a beautiful
Speaker 3: aspect of him. He is a deeply empathetic person already
Speaker 3: as a child. Right, he sits with this woman as
Speaker 3: she's dying, holds her, holds her. Right. Everyone's telling him,
Speaker 3: don't touch her, you could get sick, and he just doesn't.
Speaker 3: It doesn't even register for him, right. I love that
Speaker 3: aspect of Guts as a character. Really, it really shows
Speaker 3: you early what kind of person he really is, right
Speaker 3: he he he care Like if he feels a debt
Speaker 3: to you, he will be there, right, he will be
Speaker 3: there to foreshadow early and there he is the eponymous Gambino,
Speaker 3: our guy, the dad, this kid's father figure. Like look
Speaker 3: at this, right, corpse is thrown upon him. He freaks
Speaker 3: out a little bit, and the first reaction that Gambino
Speaker 3: has is hitting him in the face with the with
Speaker 3: his with the butt of his spear and going, you're
Speaker 3: trying to get me killed, right, Like this guy has
Speaker 3: no mercy, right, complete complete, like completely callous psycho person. Right,
Speaker 3: no mercy for a child. He doesn't give a fuck,
Speaker 3: and that's got his life, that's his upbringing, right, this
Speaker 3: is his this is his reality is bloodshed, combat, war,
Speaker 3: and that's all he's ever known and no real closeness,
Speaker 3: no real warmth. Go ahead, sir, and we get some
Speaker 3: more sort of autistic artistic excuse me flexing from your
Speaker 3: throughout this whole arc. Uh.
Speaker 4: The art continues to get better and better, and a
Speaker 4: lot of the sieges in this are exceptionally well drawn,
Speaker 4: Like this isn't even a full spread, right, this is
Speaker 4: just one panel at the top, and it is very
Speaker 4: very well drawn. So again, right, we see Guts pulling
Speaker 4: a tooth out. Obviously he's in bad shape, and we
Speaker 4: skip forward to Guts training, right, training, as we find out,
Speaker 4: with real sorts, you know, even his his you know,
Speaker 4: the other mercenaries are basically saying like, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: Like he's said, you know, you're a fucking psycho. Yeah
Speaker 3: that's a six year old. What are you? What are
Speaker 3: you doing?
Speaker 4: And it is not gentle training beating this poor kid? Yes, uh,
Speaker 4: And again that idea that you know, he's got to
Speaker 4: earn his keep and he is a mercenary and attitude
Speaker 4: we will see you know, guts carry forward. So again
Speaker 4: we're starting to see you know guts and this is
Speaker 4: foreshadowing for later using an adult sized sword as a kid,
Speaker 4: the same proportions, right, that he will carry over the
Speaker 4: rest of the career, that stubbornness and that that need
Speaker 4: to prove himself absolutely, And again we see guts able
Speaker 4: to mark Gambino, right, he's he's got heart to him
Speaker 4: and so he you know, hits him on the chin and.
Speaker 3: And this is the measure of Gambino as a human
Speaker 3: being right here. This is who he is. He is
Speaker 3: he's trying to see like like he gives he gives
Speaker 3: this fucking bullshit, you know what I mean, like like
Speaker 3: like a facade of I'm trying to train him. Nah
Speaker 3: this this guy just likes hurting people, right, and he
Speaker 3: likes feeling strong, and he likes uh and he and
Speaker 3: he cannot take being insulted or disrespected in any way right,
Speaker 3: in a minor way, exactly as soon as this kid
Speaker 3: lands something which even though it's drawing blood from you, bro,
Speaker 3: you're a mercenary, like what you can't take that? Are you?
Speaker 3: Kidding me, Right, even though he draws blood from from him,
Speaker 3: this should be a moment of like, damn kid, you're
Speaker 3: actually like, holy shit, right, but no, it's an immediate,
Speaker 3: immediate censure. Right. And not only that he gives he
Speaker 3: marks him for the rest of his life. And this,
Speaker 3: this is this is Guts his iconic scar across the nose, right,
Speaker 3: Like this is like part of his face.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: This is where he gets it right here from his dad,
Speaker 3: quote unquote. Right, this is what this kid grew up with.
Speaker 3: This is what he had to look forward to. Once
Speaker 3: you see this, everything about black Stordesman starts to make
Speaker 3: a little bit more sense. Right, You're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: all right, this kid didn't really have much of a shot.
Speaker 3: I'm surprised he's alive. Is basically how this goes at
Speaker 3: this point, right, But yeah, this is a moment. This
Speaker 3: is a really pivotal moment. Right here cuts the bridge
Speaker 3: of his nose, gives him the scar, and he learns.
Speaker 3: He learns in that moment, right, And I think, I
Speaker 3: think if I if I'm correct, not long after that
Speaker 3: is when you see Guts go to sleep with the
Speaker 3: so or holding the blade, right, Because that's all he has.
Speaker 3: It's the only thing in his life that won't that
Speaker 3: that isn't betraying him, that doesn't hurt him for the
Speaker 3: things that he does that doesn't that doesn't. And look,
Speaker 3: anybody out there has that has undergone abuse from a
Speaker 3: parent's right, I I am lucky enough that or you know,
Speaker 3: I am. I had a sort of normal childhood, right uh,
Speaker 3: And many of us out there did. But there are
Speaker 3: people who had parents like this man that that were
Speaker 3: that were essentially antagonists in their lives that did not
Speaker 3: provide any form of real nurturing structure anything like that.
Speaker 3: Imagine what kind of fucking piece of shit you have
Speaker 3: to be to try to compete with your kid as
Speaker 3: a child. Right, These people exist by the thousand. So
Speaker 3: this shot, this right here is like this is so heartbreaking, right,
Speaker 3: Like cold blade is the only thing that this kid
Speaker 3: has that is just brutal. Right, that's all he can trust,
Speaker 3: That's all he can rely on. And that's the reason
Speaker 3: that he is the way he is. Right. He learns
Speaker 3: very very early, I don't have anybody but my ability
Speaker 3: to see myself in the you know, safe in the world.
Speaker 3: I can't rely on anybody else for that and that
Speaker 3: is yeah, very hard not not very far in the future. Yes,
Speaker 3: and this is another another shot like this one right
Speaker 3: here we will see repeated over and over again. Right.
Speaker 4: Mirror is very good about doing callbacks to you know,
Speaker 4: kind of these iconic moments. You will see Guts in
Speaker 4: this pose again and again. I mean really even going
Speaker 4: up to you know, issues that have come out in
Speaker 4: the last year. Rh So, yeah, I just wanted to
Speaker 4: show that because that's that's sort of an iconic image.
Speaker 4: Will keep seeing going forward a little bit, we see
Speaker 4: another sort of characterization of Guts, which is how he trs.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: This will be echoed actually in the same recording. You're
Speaker 4: gonna be listening to you several issues ahead of this.
Speaker 4: But we see that Guts is dedicated to training, right,
Speaker 4: he is becoming you know, strong and disciplined with this
Speaker 4: massive sword. Right, and we get a little bit of
Speaker 4: an insight where he's thinking about it and he says,
Speaker 4: when I'm swinging this sword, I don't have to think
Speaker 4: about anything.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: The idea he can throw himself into combat and not
Speaker 4: have to you know, think about the you know, his
Speaker 4: negative experience is something that the pain continue to do exactly.
Speaker 4: Uh so Gambino shows up right basically, you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: personally feels some fucking shame the first time that he
Speaker 4: actually shows that he's not just purely a piece of garbage.
Speaker 3: There's some form of redeeming. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: who knows, Like I personally, I feel like he was
Speaker 3: probably shamed into doing this by the other mercenaries, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, Like, I feel like he definitely
Speaker 3: didn't want to do this, and that's why he doesn't
Speaker 3: treat it with any form of kindness or warmth. He's
Speaker 3: just like, take this shit, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: I be glad that I did it, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? Like, that's that's the way he responds to this, right.
Speaker 3: He genuinely does not feel any obligation through this child whatsoever.
Speaker 4: And we get kind of a touching moment where you
Speaker 4: can see that Guts is like he's starts smiling, right,
Speaker 4: It's one of the very few moments we see him smile.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Is again something is as simple as being given a
Speaker 4: little bit of medicine for you know, these wounds that
Speaker 4: his father has given him. Back to another siege scene. Again,
Speaker 4: the art is just so good right. This is an
Speaker 4: amazing panel of kind of like late medieval warfare. You
Speaker 4: see the very crude cannons right as they're attacking this keep.
Speaker 4: But right, this is a little bit further ahead. You
Speaker 4: see you know, Gambino leaning his men into this kind
Speaker 4: of breach in the wall, and somewhat later Guts, right,
Speaker 4: he has joined the mercenary company. Uh, so basically they're
Speaker 4: charging up into the gap.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 4: Just great art if you're a nerd for you know,
Speaker 4: medieval arms and armor. There's a lot to pick out here, right,
Speaker 4: and even you know, very minor characters in the back
Speaker 4: are drawn in a lot of detail.
Speaker 3: Loving care, loving care on everything on screen or on pana.
Speaker 4: And we see something that is is echoed later, right,
Speaker 4: which is, you know, Guts sort of ability to fight
Speaker 4: guys much larger than him. So he's fighting full grown
Speaker 4: men in full armor instead of his kind of you know,
Speaker 4: scrappy uh, you know, his kind of scrappy get up,
Speaker 4: and we see Guts kill his first man, right, and
Speaker 4: shortly afterwards, right again recurring recurring bit, uh, after he
Speaker 4: kills this guy a much bigger, a bigger guy yeah,
Speaker 4: shows up and just starts beating him. And Gambido comes
Speaker 4: to his rescue and we get a lesson, right, he says,
Speaker 4: you know, this isn't practice. After you've killed someone, move on,
Speaker 4: watch your back, right. So an interesting characterization moment there.
Speaker 4: We see Guts disturbed by the fact that he is,
Speaker 4: you know, he's killed someone, and not only is Gambino
Speaker 4: telling him to tough it up, but that was not
Speaker 4: an honorable thing. He snuck up behind this guy and
Speaker 4: stabbed him in the back. So getting more characterization of
Speaker 4: Gambino as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Gambino is the he is the archetypal practical cell sword.
Speaker 3: He's there to kill people for money. He doesn't care.
Speaker 3: But he's on a knight's He's not you know, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean honor and chivalry. None of that means anything
Speaker 3: to him. He is there for the paycheck and the
Speaker 3: and his work is killing people. It's as simple as that.
Speaker 3: He doesn't care how he does it. The most important
Speaker 3: thing to him is making sure that he survives and
Speaker 3: killing whatever guy's in front of him so that he
Speaker 3: can get paid. It's as simple as that, right, And
Speaker 3: he instills these kinds of values in as much as
Speaker 3: he can. Like he he tries to make sure that
Speaker 3: this kid. There is a sense in which Gambino is
Speaker 3: like deep tough love. He's like this, you know, it's
Speaker 3: it's by no means would you want a person to
Speaker 3: treat you like this? Right, But it doesn't change the
Speaker 3: fact that Gambino is actually, to a degree, trying to
Speaker 3: prepare this child for the kind of life that he's
Speaker 3: going to have to live. Listen, being a mercenary a
Speaker 3: self sort is not an easy fucking life at all.
Speaker 3: So he's like, why why the hell am I bringing
Speaker 3: this kid into this? Like that was his whole point
Speaker 3: to begin with with with uh with the woman which
Speaker 3: I I don't remember her name now, I think it's
Speaker 3: Hi Shu.
Speaker 4: I'm not miss if I'm not mistaken, so uh.
Speaker 3: Something like that. I think it's yeah, it's sort of
Speaker 3: a sea or something, you know. Regardless she he is like,
Speaker 3: why am I gonna have another mouse? Feed?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: This is not a life for a child. Man, We're
Speaker 3: a mercenary, ban you're gonna bring a baby like what
Speaker 3: are you crazy? Right to and to a degree, he's right, right,
Speaker 3: And then she dies and he has to take care
Speaker 3: of this kid, right, So he's like, I knew that
Speaker 3: this was going to happen, and that's why he's so
Speaker 3: resentful of Guts, That's why he treats him so poorly. Right,
Speaker 3: you can understand this character right again, Mirror is very good.
Speaker 3: He doesn't like even when they seem like cartoon villains,
Speaker 3: they're not right there. There's something going on under the
Speaker 3: hood there. So Gambino is interesting, but it doesn't change
Speaker 3: the fact that he's effectively a piece of shit to
Speaker 3: this kid. Right, It makes no real difference to Guts' experience,
Speaker 3: but that is what his concern is is, kid, you
Speaker 3: have to be able to survive or else you're just meat.
Speaker 3: Like what's the point? Right, And you see it. You
Speaker 3: see it in Guts. Look at look at his Look
Speaker 3: at his demeanor, like that's ten year old. Look at
Speaker 3: the next Yeah, the next scene right is after the
Speaker 3: battle will kill you. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 4: The mercenaries are having their their plunder, you know, divide
Speaker 4: it up. You know, we see obviously the mercenary is
Speaker 4: sort of carrousing and drinking, and you know, Gambino shared
Speaker 4: some of the spoils, right, basically says like all right,
Speaker 4: like you're you're part of this and we see this.
Speaker 4: You know he's he could a faint smile from Guts, right,
Speaker 4: he obviously very proud of, you know, his reward. And
Speaker 4: we get there looking is one of the most infamous
Speaker 4: panels in the history of manga, is this guy. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so we're gonna have to talk around this, right, Uh,
Speaker 4: We're gonna have to talk around this. And in the
Speaker 4: next part you hear us mentioning that that Guts does
Speaker 4: not like to be touched.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: Basically what happens is, uh, while you know, Guts is
Speaker 4: in his room, that figure Donovan uh comes in and
Speaker 4: you know, forces himself upon you know, Guts as a child.
Speaker 3: Right. It's uh. I don't want to say it's tastefully done,
Speaker 3: but it is horribly graphic. I think it's a taste
Speaker 3: It is pretty much you can get depicting that, right.
Speaker 3: A lot of people complain about the depictions of of
Speaker 3: of Uh. I don't know what terms are best to
Speaker 3: use here. I'm gonna's sexual assault. Well, yes, sexual sexual assault.
Speaker 3: Right that it's a lot of people and they're mostly women,
Speaker 3: and women are gay. It complain about the depictions of
Speaker 3: sexual violence in Braserk. At no point in Berzerk does
Speaker 3: he glorify these acts? Does he make them seem like
Speaker 3: they're a sick thing that you should want to do.
Speaker 3: It is always pure victimization of innocence, right, especially this
Speaker 3: main character, who is also a child by the way,
Speaker 3: there he is, that's that right after that's yeah what happens.
Speaker 3: Had been meaning on that walk for a long time,
Speaker 3: but yes, that's what happens. And not only that. The
Speaker 3: most important aspect of this not just that this happens
Speaker 3: to him. Donovan makes it. Donovan says explicit to Guts,
Speaker 3: Gambino sold you, yeah, like for three means yeah, why you?
Speaker 3: Why are you fighting me? You? I paid for this?
Speaker 3: Right that breaks this child. It's not the act, it's
Speaker 3: the knowledge that it was sanctioned by the person that
Speaker 3: this kid relies upon and sees as a father. That
Speaker 3: is what breaks this kid. He he It takes a
Speaker 3: long time for Guts to be able to be normal
Speaker 3: after this. And I wouldn't even say that he's normal.
Speaker 3: They would agree, right, yeah, I would say relatively fine,
Speaker 3: Like he can accept people putting their hand on him,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? It takes him forever, But
Speaker 3: this is why.
Speaker 4: So obviously you see again, you know guts after the
Speaker 4: after the crime, you know, just completely you know, mentally broken.
Speaker 4: And it comes back to you know, Gambino, right, he
Speaker 4: goes to confront him. He has his sword in hand,
Speaker 4: looking at him, and apparently Gambino denies, like at least
Speaker 4: plays dump right, kind of casting doubt on this, you know,
Speaker 4: and he believes, at least for now, Gambino had no
Speaker 4: knowledge of it, right, obviously upset, but seemingly he was
Speaker 4: going to confront his father, you know, bring some kind
Speaker 4: of justice. But at least for now, the assumption is
Speaker 4: that's not the case. So fast forward a little bit, right,
Speaker 4: we see, you know, the mercenary company on the move
Speaker 4: and you know, obviously Donovan over gots his shoulder kind
Speaker 4: of you know, leering at him, and then you know,
Speaker 4: the charge is off. Right, So there's sort of this
Speaker 4: chaotic battle scene skipping through it again, very well illustrated.
Speaker 4: But as they go to chase some uh, you know,
Speaker 4: some of the stragglers, right, some people fleeing. You know,
Speaker 4: Donovan is is just mashing these guys with the giant axe.
Speaker 4: All of a sudden, out of nowhere, he gets hit
Speaker 4: with a crossbow and guts the standing behind him right, obviously,
Speaker 4: with just murder in his eyes, just looking for revenge.
Speaker 4: He shoots him, puts him out right and as he's
Speaker 4: he's got, you know, a bolt in the guy's face,
Speaker 4: he's dying, his sword over top of him. He basically says,
Speaker 4: like all rights, who sold me out? He got to
Speaker 4: tell me? And he kills right nothing, just cold blooded
Speaker 4: again something we will see from Guts, you know, manys.
Speaker 3: This is where the black Swordsman is born is in
Speaker 3: these moments. This is where this kid learns one. He
Speaker 3: realizes what one. He can't do anything about what happened
Speaker 3: to him. All he can do is feel the pain
Speaker 3: and the anger and the rage. Right, the the the
Speaker 3: pressure that is built internally upon a person that has
Speaker 3: this kind of saying happened to them? Right, You don't
Speaker 3: you can't keep that internal. It will break out, and
Speaker 3: the way in which it manifests for this child is
Speaker 3: his rage and this stays with him. Right. The reason
Speaker 3: that I love this arc so much is because this
Speaker 3: establishes how Guts responds to the world trying to destroy him.
Speaker 3: It's one way. He picks up a sword and he
Speaker 3: fights it. He goes for it, and he will kill you.
Speaker 3: Like right here, he has shown if you have wronged me,
Speaker 3: there is no moral system, there's no laws, that none
Speaker 3: of that is going to mean anything to me. I'm
Speaker 3: going to come for you. Right, Guts has already established it.
Speaker 3: He is willing to act outside of sociality. He is
Speaker 3: willing to be outside of what is considered moral to
Speaker 3: get the justice that he that he that he that
Speaker 3: he believes is correct, and any person would agree with him. Right, Like,
Speaker 3: nobody watches that and goes man, Donovan really should have
Speaker 3: gone through a trial. Nobody, nobody cares. Right, but that
Speaker 3: that willingness to go outside of the rules, right, all
Speaker 3: of that, that, all of this is building into the
Speaker 3: person that we see him as in the Black Sides
Speaker 3: of an arc. Right, But there is yet more, there
Speaker 3: is yet more to be inflicted upon this boy, because,
Speaker 3: as I've said many times, so many people, Guts had
Speaker 3: a hard life. Right.
Speaker 4: So, moving slightly forward, the battle continues and Gambino is crippled.
Speaker 4: He loses a leg I think due to an explosion
Speaker 4: or you know, the gate kind of falls over on him.
Speaker 4: And there's an interesting moment where you know, Gambino is
Speaker 4: you know, on his back in bed, you know, he's
Speaker 4: missing a leg and looking over him, right, Guts is
Speaker 4: seeing you know, this man who's you know, at one
Speaker 4: time the most powerful figure in his life, now an invalid. Right,
Speaker 4: he reflects on you know, Donovan beating him, giving him
Speaker 4: the cut across the bridge of his nose. But he
Speaker 4: sees that he's helpless, or he sees that he's delirious.
Speaker 4: He's he's calling out for help, and he decides to
Speaker 4: help him. So we skip, you know, two years forward, right,
Speaker 4: we see now Guts has become a full fledged mercenary,
Speaker 4: you know, riding a horse still again, right, very young,
Speaker 4: but at this point he's an accomplished killer. And after
Speaker 4: the battle he returns back to Gambino, who is you know,
Speaker 4: an invalid now, you know, back at camp. Sort of
Speaker 4: reversal of situations where now Gambino, right, is a dead
Speaker 4: weight on Guts.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, he is fully transitioned to being deadbeat dad, even right,
Speaker 3: even with the dog, even with the dogs so brutal,
Speaker 3: it is so brutal, I killed the animal. Like, look
Speaker 3: at him, he's so earnest. He just wants his dad
Speaker 3: to care, to feel like, wow, great job, you did something.
Speaker 3: Be proud of me man, like, what the hell? Right?
Speaker 3: And you know that he wants that. He craves it
Speaker 3: because you've seen the one time that that happened. Gambino
Speaker 3: like gave him a little compliment, right, Guts was excited.
Speaker 3: He loves that vallet he Why would a child want
Speaker 3: not want to feel validation? Right, it all tracks, it's
Speaker 3: all perfectly. He's a kid, right, But this guy doesn't
Speaker 3: give a shit. He's in his own world now. He
Speaker 3: is fully deadbeat, right, he is the Only thing that
Speaker 3: matters to him is his own victimization, is his own
Speaker 3: like now I can't be a strong man anymore. Now
Speaker 3: I can't be the guy I used to be. That's
Speaker 3: all that matters to Gambino. He doesn't care about Guts.
Speaker 3: He doesn't care about what Guts us for him. He
Speaker 3: doesn't care about the fact that Guts is literally providing
Speaker 3: for him. To him, it's like that that's just what
Speaker 3: you should do. This guy is the biggest scumbag dad
Speaker 3: of all I think in all manga, this guy is
Speaker 3: the scumbag dad. I don't think it gets worse than him. Well,
Speaker 3: and we see him right even as an invalid using
Speaker 3: his crutches to you know, slap Guts upside the head,
Speaker 3: turn wine quick enough, exactly get me drunk faster, right, right,
Speaker 3: So going forward, we see this interaction where he's kind
Speaker 3: of Gambino is sort of sparring with the other mercenaries
Speaker 3: again trying to you know, sort of you know, re
Speaker 3: establish his authority, and back in the the kind of
Speaker 3: treasure room, right, we see Guts is furious he's been
Speaker 3: given a large reward for killing the enemy general. Obviously
Speaker 3: he's mad that he's you know about the interaction with
Speaker 3: his father, so is he. He kind of spikes the
Speaker 3: you know, the the gold on the ground, buries his
Speaker 3: sword in the you know, in the support to the tent,
Speaker 3: and you know, that's the end of it. But it
Speaker 3: goes back to his tent later kind of in it
Speaker 3: shot very similarly to both Guts falling sleep with the
Speaker 3: sword earlier and also the scene with Donovan and towering
Speaker 3: over top of him in the middle of the night.
Speaker 3: After this interaction, we see Gambino right with his sword out,
Speaker 3: You're seemingly going to kill his dutiful adopted son. So
Speaker 3: he just right look at again, you're well said, right,
Speaker 3: sharp teeth, blank eyes, you know, this sort of just
Speaker 3: motivated by murderous rage, and almost without saying anything, he
Speaker 3: swings for right. He's just going for it. Guts is
Speaker 3: obviously disturbed by this. His first thought is he's drunk,
Speaker 3: and oh, yeah, She'shu. That is the name I had
Speaker 3: that correct, And he's furious with him, you know, basically saying, like.
Speaker 4: You you cursed me. You know you were you know, unlucky. Right,
Speaker 4: That idea of being cursed something that will carry through
Speaker 4: with him. He tells him, you know, on that day
Speaker 4: eleven years ago, you should have died, like over and
Speaker 4: over again. Still seemingly this was just a ruse because
Speaker 4: you know, while Guts is looking, you know, desponded, gamp
Speaker 4: Beato just swings for him, and finally Guts decides to
Speaker 4: fight back.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: He pulls out a sword and starts defending himself, and
Speaker 4: we get the final confirmation. Right, Gambino admits he sold
Speaker 4: him for three silver coins. Right again, this is a
Speaker 4: very disturbing moment, and he says, I was sick of you.
Speaker 4: I wanted wanted rid of you, I wanted you gone.
Speaker 3: You killed, he says, you killed she. He blames this
Speaker 3: kid for everything, like this is any I feel like
Speaker 3: anyone who had an alcoholic dad or something, right Like,
Speaker 3: I was fortunate enough I didn't have to deal with
Speaker 3: that kind of thing. But that was a pretty normal guy.
Speaker 3: But I have heard absolute horror stor some people that
Speaker 3: I know very well, right that this is exactly the
Speaker 3: kind of thing that would happen. Guy barges into your
Speaker 3: room in the middle of the nights, he's fucked up,
Speaker 3: and he just starts dumping all of his problems on
Speaker 3: you and saying they're because of you. Things like this
Speaker 3: are hyper common in these kinds of relationships with with
Speaker 3: extremely dysfunctional people like this, right, Like, this is a
Speaker 3: you know, despite this being in a in a fantasy
Speaker 3: you know, uh manga that takes place in medieval times,
Speaker 3: these are real interactions between people. This is these are
Speaker 3: real interpersonal relationships that children have been hurt like this
Speaker 3: so many times. Right, this is why Berserk has this reputation.
Speaker 3: The people that have read it, that have given it
Speaker 3: the time, that have that have not just looked at
Speaker 3: it as some sort of like torture porn, like a
Speaker 3: like in the most shallow sense that can look at
Speaker 3: these He's doing so much in these panels. There's so
Speaker 3: much to all the reactions, to the to the to
Speaker 3: the to the facial you know, responses, this is this,
Speaker 3: these are he writes them like the real humans, right,
Speaker 3: And that's the mark of a good author, right, and
Speaker 3: a mark of a good storyteller. This scene, it's so devastating,
Speaker 3: like all of this kid's worst anxieties are being confirmed
Speaker 3: by the only person that he didn't want them to
Speaker 3: be confirmed by while he's trying to kill him. And
Speaker 3: it's like he can't be more candid. He's drunk, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. It's not like he's lying. He's
Speaker 3: saying exactly what he feels, right, And it's the first
Speaker 3: time that Gambino's really being honest with this kid, and
Speaker 3: he just uses it to destroy him emotionally so he
Speaker 3: can kill him. And the result is.
Speaker 4: The result is guts kills Gambino. Again, the high contrast
Speaker 4: style we see you know at these sort of moments, right,
Speaker 4: the black background, the white foreground, you know, all the
Speaker 4: shading in between, just excellently illustrated. But he is, you know,
Speaker 4: he's a patricide. He has killed his father despite everything else. Again,
Speaker 4: very very dramatic scene. Way to end.
Speaker 3: Uh you know that volume. Uh the action picks up
Speaker 3: almost immediately afterwards. Uh, Guts is forced to beat a retreat. Right,
Speaker 3: He's obviously, you know, horrified as the band, the mercenary band,
Speaker 3: turns on him. They assume that he murdered him and
Speaker 3: he has to just run. And again, any person, and
Speaker 3: especially any man, you know, like this. You know women,
Speaker 3: women do enjoy berserk, but I berserk is like it
Speaker 3: is a story for males. This is about in many ways,
Speaker 3: so much of what makes it what it is about
Speaker 3: what it is to be male, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: And and how our position in the world is sort
Speaker 3: of dictated and for us right in many ways, and
Speaker 3: for much of the history of man. Right now, everybody
Speaker 3: is a soldier, right, I'm not trying to imply that
Speaker 3: all males soldiers and that's how it worked. But at
Speaker 3: the drop of the hat, you would be expected to
Speaker 3: be do you know what I'm saying? Like that is
Speaker 3: our role, that is our job is to potentially die
Speaker 3: for the greater hole. So this the nature of these things,
Speaker 3: how Guts respond to them, and not just him, but
Speaker 3: many of the other characters. Right, there's a reason that
Speaker 3: this story is so it touches so close to so
Speaker 3: many guys that read this, right, they feel it. They
Speaker 3: imagine being this kid. Man, they put themselves in the
Speaker 3: position of that show. They remember what they were as children,
Speaker 3: and they look at this and imagine themselves in this position. Man,
Speaker 3: imagine being hunted by a bunch of dudes, you know,
Speaker 3: for a thing you didn't even your dad's trying to
Speaker 3: kill you. You defend yourself and then these guys are trying
Speaker 3: to murder you on top of that. Like, this is
Speaker 3: just horror, horror, horror story. This whole kid's this kid's
Speaker 3: whole life. It's just like.
Speaker 1: That.
Speaker 3: I remember that series of series of unfortunate events. They
Speaker 3: could have could have been that could have been the
Speaker 3: English title of Bersers, genuinely, because that is life gets
Speaker 3: his life, right, It's just it's just one bad thing
Speaker 3: into another, right, and this kid just surviving it, surviving
Speaker 3: it as best he can. Yeah, certainly.
Speaker 4: So he's on the run again. We see that that,
Speaker 4: you know, repetition, the idea that he is cursed. So
Speaker 4: the Mercenary band catches up to him, right, he's unable
Speaker 4: to escape. They shoot him, and you know, in very
Speaker 4: theatric form, he tumbles into a river. Right when he
Speaker 4: regains consciousness, we get just a very beautiful shot right
Speaker 4: of him laying on his back, an arrow, you know,
Speaker 4: poking up through his chest that oh yeah, there it is. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: the stars you know, over top of him. But right,
Speaker 4: the piece doesn't last, right. He he gets up, obviously,
Speaker 4: he sees the you know, the beautiful sky and as
Speaker 4: he's sort of stumbling along with this sword again, uh,
Speaker 4: something we will see often repeated. He's sort of wondering,
Speaker 4: what's the point of even living anymore? Right, what's the
Speaker 4: point of living in a world where there's only bad things?
Speaker 4: But despite that, right, despite the fact that he lives,
Speaker 4: you know, a horrible life. He's no nothing but kind
Speaker 4: of violence and betrayal. When the wolves come around, he
Speaker 4: can't stop fighting, right, despite the fact that his life
Speaker 4: is horrible.
Speaker 3: He literally says it's over, and he's he's and he
Speaker 3: just automatically reacts. Right. I love this. I love this.
Speaker 3: This is that you know, indomitable human spirit meme. This
Speaker 3: is But Gutsy is that character he he can't just
Speaker 3: go down, you know what I mean? He had there's
Speaker 3: something in him that goes nah, not fuck that.
Speaker 4: Well and tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty
Speaker 4: sure this section is heavily referenced in gene Row, Like
Speaker 4: the visuals are very similar.
Speaker 3: Well forgot, I think so. I think so. It's been
Speaker 3: such a long time since I watched in Row that
Speaker 3: I can't remember. Who knows if he even was deliberate
Speaker 3: or not, but these are very similar since Yeah, super
Speaker 3: influential in the right time too, exactly. Yeah, by the way,
Speaker 3: everybody out there, if you haven't seen General the Wolf Frigid,
Speaker 3: go watch General the Wolf brigad. It is fucking sick.
Speaker 4: In three years, renis when we're done with this, I
Speaker 4: want to bring you on to do a review of that.
Speaker 4: I love that, and almost no one else will talk
Speaker 4: to me about it. It's actually yeah, no gedious version
Speaker 4: of my podcast intro.
Speaker 3: It pulled a lot from Genro Fucking Rules, General fucking Rules.
Speaker 3: It is absolutely amazing. Beautiful work again, beautiful work. A
Speaker 3: lot of the stuff that was coming out late eighties
Speaker 3: early nineties of Japan was just fucking fantastic. They really
Speaker 3: really cared. A lot of love soul went into that stuff,
Speaker 3: both from animation, storytelling, you know, the manga themselves. Right,
Speaker 3: the drawings, the drafts, work, all of it is. These
Speaker 3: are all monumental works. In my opinion, this is like
Speaker 3: a true a movement A time friend, I was like
Speaker 3: a It laid up such a powerful foundation for what
Speaker 3: we're in now. Think about the amount of big sword guys, right, Like,
Speaker 3: think about all of that. Right, we live in a
Speaker 3: world that was in many ways, like the the flavor
Speaker 3: of the water was helped to be created by these stories, right,
Speaker 3: these aesthetic languages. Four years later, what a beautiful times good.
Speaker 3: It's such a spread, bro. I know, I know, I
Speaker 3: should stop doing this because it's it's probably repetitive to hear,
Speaker 3: you know, two guys on a podcast say this art's
Speaker 3: really good. But man, the art's really good. Like, what
Speaker 3: do you say? Uh, that's part of the story of
Speaker 3: what Berserk is. It's mirror's drawings. He is like, if
Speaker 3: Berserk was drawn and written by a lesser artist, I
Speaker 3: don't think it would have that same cultural impact that
Speaker 3: it does. It was the esthetic sensibilities of Kantaro Mura
Speaker 3: that led it to where it was. It's not just
Speaker 3: the choices that he made, it's the it's the the
Speaker 3: fidelity with which he can, he can realize these things.
Speaker 3: It's the way he frames, it's the way he panels.
Speaker 3: That is part of the the The entire Monk is
Speaker 3: a visual feast. You can literally spend more time just
Speaker 3: looking at the images than reading the dialogue and the plot.
Speaker 3: It's there's that much packed in and that's part of
Speaker 3: the reason. Also why there was this This mouk was
Speaker 3: done monthly, and part of the reason why it took
Speaker 3: so long in some places to get finished is because
Speaker 3: he's doing this ship, you know what I mean. It's yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, if this took three months to make,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised. But he was putting these out monthly,
Speaker 3: so yeah, that tells you also what the workload must
Speaker 3: be like O.
Speaker 4: Well, and it's like obviously it's it's grim, but he
Speaker 4: did actually work himself to death.
Speaker 3: Yeah. He literally died at his at his desk, his
Speaker 3: his his aortic uh uh artery, so one of the
Speaker 3: main arteries into the heart, it's it split bin and
Speaker 3: he bled out and died. That's that's how that's how
Speaker 3: my boy died. Absolutely brutal, can't stand it, really really
Speaker 3: heartbreaking man, And he died he also died like a
Speaker 3: few days before. My birthday was really brutal for me.
Speaker 3: I was, I was so upset. Holy shit.
Speaker 4: Let's continue though, returning to the narrative, he's able to
Speaker 4: fend off the wolves. Right, He's he's injured, he's already
Speaker 4: been shot, passes out and is picked up by another
Speaker 4: one of these traveling mercenary bands. So four years later, right,
Speaker 4: we see this this siege again. Man, even the background
Speaker 4: characters are just so well done. And as you know,
Speaker 4: the gate busts down, right, this this army is surging in.
Speaker 3: We see we got a classic berserk moment. Just a
Speaker 3: big ass guy, big ass guy shows up.
Speaker 4: It's just a goon, right, And as he's standing in
Speaker 4: the line, right, the leader, the sort of noble it was,
Speaker 4: ordering his men forward.
Speaker 3: They won't do it, and he.
Speaker 4: Basically calls it to the crowd. It's like, all right,
Speaker 4: who's gonna who's gonna take care of this? They have
Speaker 4: anoy a Troy moment, right, like, call forth your champion, right, yeah,
Speaker 4: Guts doesn't even say nothing, he just shrides forward. And
Speaker 4: he's obviously young. He is still a young person. He's
Speaker 4: not a kid anymore. Let's keep in mind everything up
Speaker 4: to this point. He was eleven, right, he was eleven
Speaker 4: years old when he killed Gambino and have to run away.
Speaker 3: He's so he's fifteen here, yeah, plus or minus? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that is insane. Right, And this kid is obviously, like
Speaker 3: just to look at him, right, this is a hard person.
Speaker 3: This is a this is and this kid is ruthless.
Speaker 3: There's no mercy in the eyes, there's no hesitation. He
Speaker 3: looks like he knows exactly what he is doing. Everybody
Speaker 3: counts him out right, he's I love this when he
Speaker 3: goes when he starts negotiating the price, yes, guy, oh
Speaker 3: my god, so disrespectful.
Speaker 4: Well, and and this is a you know, again the
Speaker 4: sort of great line art we see. But he, you know,
Speaker 4: is successfully able to kill this man. I actually think
Speaker 4: that the transition between the last volume and this one
Speaker 4: is significant the improvement in the artwork. And the artwork
Speaker 4: was already really really good. But he even this sequence
Speaker 4: just here is already better than every combat sequence that
Speaker 4: he's done previous to this. Right, The the implication of
Speaker 4: speed and power that he's putting here.
Speaker 3: There are a couple of uh, just briefly there there
Speaker 3: are they made three berserk movies. All right, most of
Speaker 3: the animated berserk stuff is passable or terrible. Everything made
Speaker 3: recently is genuinely so bad that do not watch it.
Speaker 3: It actually ruins it in many ways. The twenty sixteen
Speaker 3: stuff's awful, Yeah, absolutely terrible, absolutely terrible. But there were
Speaker 3: three films that were made. They're based on this arc
Speaker 3: of the Golden Age. Right. They don't show the I
Speaker 3: don't think they show the like the stuff when he's
Speaker 3: a little kid, but it starts basically from here, right,
Speaker 3: This fight and the whole band of the Hawk, all
Speaker 3: of that. They're pretty great in some ways. There are
Speaker 3: problems with them, obviously, but they're pretty great in some ways.
Speaker 3: And one of the ways that I really really enjoyed
Speaker 3: that film is the way in which they depict this fight,
Speaker 3: because they make Guts seem completely psychotic. If you were, like,
Speaker 3: if you were to fight somebody who could move like
Speaker 3: that with that kind of weapons, He's putting you into
Speaker 3: pieces in seconds. Like it's like, as I've said before,
Speaker 3: it's like fighting an industrial machine rather than a person.
Speaker 3: He's hitting you harder than you think he should be
Speaker 3: able to hit you, and he's doing it too many times.
Speaker 3: Look at this guy. This guy's massive, and he's like,
Speaker 3: what is going on? This is a this is a
Speaker 3: fifteen year old He outweighs him, probably by two hundred pounds,
Speaker 3: and he's getting pushed back. Right, this kid is nassy.
Speaker 3: He is insanely strong, and he's very very good at swordsmanship.
Speaker 3: He's not just swinging around a big sword, a big
Speaker 3: heavy sword and hitting people hard. He can swing it
Speaker 3: with the speed of a lesser weapon. He is not
Speaker 3: just good, he's excellent. Right, he is extremely dangerous already,
Speaker 3: and he's fifteen years old. Right. Yeah, so he works
Speaker 3: this dude, and there it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's an iconic absolustration.
Speaker 3: Right. They already sort of foreshadowing the eye, right, though
Speaker 3: only the one eye right.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. So the battle continues, right, he he
Speaker 4: kills this champion.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: Then afterwards we see an interesting again continuing the kind
Speaker 4: of mirror between you know, Griffith and Guts that's sort
Speaker 4: of at the beginning of this. After the battle is over, right,
Speaker 4: this this nobleman who offered him the money, right, basically
Speaker 4: comes back afterwards and says like, all right, like you
Speaker 4: did a really good job. Not only are you getting
Speaker 4: a cash reward, but if you want, I'll promote you
Speaker 4: to a squire, right, offer you a chance at minor nobility,
Speaker 4: and Gus just leaves. Right, He's just completely uninterested. Basically
Speaker 4: sounds gay pretty much.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: We see we actually see him strike this noble when
Speaker 4: he puts his hand on him for absolutely obvious reasons.
Speaker 4: But nonetheless, you know, he leaves. There's a shot where
Speaker 4: we see during the battle, right, Griffith is there too,
Speaker 4: and he's noticed Gut. Ye he watches the fight. He
Speaker 4: watches the fight between Guts and bus Buzz. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: for those wondering, much like you know, dark soils or
Speaker 4: any other you know, Japanese property with Western tones. Uh,
Speaker 4: there's a whole lot of fake words that sound like
Speaker 4: English words to Japanese people. So I'm just gonna have
Speaker 4: to get used to it, especially hundred.
Speaker 3: Just embrace, just embrace the names. Allow it, allow it.
Speaker 4: So next we see Guts, you know, walking away by
Speaker 4: himself and Griffin's Griffith's band notices him. Right, Griffith is
Speaker 4: just passed out. A couple of the guys race.
Speaker 3: He usually laying in the grass like a like a
Speaker 3: little cool guy, you know, what I mean, just hanging
Speaker 3: out right, and and we're a couple. He's hippie maxing,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, he's just chilling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's grounding.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: But basically a couple of the mercenaries decide to go
Speaker 4: after right, like, oh, he's probably got a bunch of
Speaker 4: money on him, so you armed men bear down on him,
Speaker 4: gus horsemen without on horseback, without skipping a beat, he
Speaker 4: just cuts the first guy down right just again, yeah,
Speaker 4: just completely Bisex one of the first unnamed goons. Again
Speaker 4: another another great panel here, and obviously, you know, the
Speaker 4: men start to surround him, right, he's fending them off.
Speaker 4: He cuts another guy's arm off, but they call back
Speaker 4: for help right too. Cosca, who will become a character,
Speaker 4: will see much more from her. But basically, these couple
Speaker 4: guys have gotten into a situation where they can't handle it,
Speaker 4: so they're calling for more help. So she, you know,
Speaker 4: armors up, goes in guts is still you know, staring
Speaker 4: down you know the rest of the guys, but Costca
Speaker 4: shoots him just out of a crossbow bull to Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Which is you know, it's sort of dirty pool. But
Speaker 3: neither here nor there.
Speaker 4: The point is you know that the fight continues. Guts
Speaker 4: Is is you know, wounded but still going, and him
Speaker 4: and Costca go at it. She's on horseback, he's not.
Speaker 4: They're trading blows again. Art Is is very very good here,
Speaker 4: and you know, he knocks her helmet off. He gets
Speaker 4: the advantage.
Speaker 3: And you can tell she's good because she can she
Speaker 3: can actually perry him, right, she can't. She immediately know
Speaker 3: that he's way stronger than she thought he would be,
Speaker 3: and she's like, what holy shit, But she can still
Speaker 3: keep him from just destroying her, right, So she has
Speaker 3: that skill. And then he gets surprised that the fact
Speaker 3: that she's a girl. He's like, what the hell? Right,
Speaker 3: she's a woman. I would have never expected that, right
Speaker 3: and right? Yeah, which you know something, you know people
Speaker 3: like to do the whole irm coscas a girl? How come?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: And it's like, guy, listen, blades are blades. They are
Speaker 3: force equalizers. Right. If you know how to use a
Speaker 3: sword and fight with the sword, you being thirty percent
Speaker 3: stronger whatever really isn't that big of a deal. And
Speaker 3: the way swords fighting works, you can block a heavier,
Speaker 3: stronger blow relatively easily because it's It's about physical structure.
Speaker 3: It's physics. It's not a like, oh I hold my
Speaker 3: arm out out there and if I'm strong enough, I
Speaker 3: can block your blow. It's you're trying to push through
Speaker 3: my entire body. It's a grap you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: If you know how to do it, somebody being strong
Speaker 3: doesn't make a difference. It's about technique, right, So she can,
Speaker 3: you know, to a degree? She she like, it's not
Speaker 3: insane to imagine that a woman would be able to
Speaker 3: kill people with a fucking weapon, right, It's not. It's
Speaker 3: not impossible. Well, and to be fair, she is exceptional, Like, yes, exactly,
Speaker 3: she's not. This isn't considered like normal. Coska is a
Speaker 3: exceptional person by every means that there's no other women
Speaker 3: fighters in the band. Right, obviously put her there because
Speaker 3: it was cool to have a woman in the story.
Speaker 3: But I like Casca. I like Coska as a character.
Speaker 3: I think she's interesting in her own right. Her own
Speaker 3: little conflict that's going on in her head is interesting.
Speaker 3: Her dynamic with Griffith and Guts is interesting. And her
Speaker 3: position in the band I also think is interesting because
Speaker 3: she's sort of like a manager administrator, right, She's the
Speaker 3: one who is She's like the disciplinarian where Griffiths runs
Speaker 3: the show, right, she Costka is always the person who's
Speaker 3: reprimanding people. Right, She's the one telling Corcus not to
Speaker 3: go after Guts in the first place. She's the one
Speaker 3: who is like, he's gonna do something to you, and
Speaker 3: then it happens. She's the one that comes to bail
Speaker 3: them out. She's like mom, right, and so yeah, you're
Speaker 3: completely correct. But as as the you know, the fight
Speaker 3: wraps up, Griffith basically throws a spear into it. He
Speaker 3: breaks up the fight again. Just a super cool image,
Speaker 3: very very ominous. Yes, his his design is so masterful.
Speaker 3: I love his Like the helmet is stull iconic. Right,
Speaker 3: this is such a perfectly rendered character. And then I
Speaker 3: think right after that, right, he takes a helmet off
Speaker 3: and issue he reveals his luscious locks in his full
Speaker 3: mane of He basically like you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Right yet, because the two of them fight first, Right,
Speaker 4: he enters the fight and he actually wounds Guts, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because Gut swings at him hard and he just
Speaker 3: catches it in a great moment. Right, He's just like, yep,
Speaker 3: you're not bigger kid, stimmer down. You know what I mean, kids,
Speaker 3: slimmer down. There's there's other people who are strong out there. Guy,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm a great moment.
Speaker 4: Another great moment. Right, Guts is wounded, but he uses
Speaker 4: his sword to pick back up.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: He's again this is an image or oppose. We see
Speaker 4: Guts and often right using his sword to kind of
Speaker 4: pull himself off as he's wounded. Uh So Griffith is
Speaker 4: obviously impressed right by you know, Guts his abilities and
Speaker 4: as as Gut's basically leans back to swing for him,
Speaker 4: he passes out right. And then that is that moment
Speaker 4: where we see Griffith take off his helmet and he's
Speaker 4: this sort of legalist like angelic figure. Right, he's a
Speaker 4: white chrbic.
Speaker 3: Yes, he's cherubic. He's he's he's like almost like like
Speaker 3: in a like a beauty in the sense that a
Speaker 3: child is beautiful, right, not in like a lustful or
Speaker 3: like desirous way. It's just a purely in no way sensual. Yeah,
Speaker 3: exactly right. He's like like a like a like in
Speaker 3: ethereal beauty, a thing that is beautiful regardless of all
Speaker 3: the context that it's in it simply is beautiful, like
Speaker 3: a like a like a flower or something like that,
Speaker 3: which is so the opposite of Yes, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. They are, They are. They couldn't be more different.
Speaker 3: Guts is, Guts is grunting and and grit and pain
Speaker 3: and bleeding and fucking scars, and Griffith is untouched, completely calm,
Speaker 3: all white, never even fucking says anything, just pure like cold,
Speaker 3: rational serenity. Right, Like he's like Galadrial, you know, he
Speaker 3: has this distance that gives him a sense of no
Speaker 3: almost like regions, like like like he feels he feels real,
Speaker 3: he feels above them. Yeah, and there's the.
Speaker 4: Dream, right, So Guts is he's unconscious, right, and this
Speaker 4: is this is fever dream, right, having this nightmare of
Speaker 4: a figure chasing a you know, a naked, younger version
Speaker 4: of himself. You don't have to be a rocket scientist
Speaker 4: to figure out what's going on there. And what we
Speaker 4: see is, you know, he's swinging at this figure. You know,
Speaker 4: his sword is is cutting through him. And you know,
Speaker 4: as this happens, he sees Gambino over his shoulder on
Speaker 4: this pile of bones, and he's you know, asking like, Gambino,
Speaker 4: save me. The sword isn't working, and he tells him
Speaker 4: to look at the sword and it's transformed into his
Speaker 4: severed leg and he says, you know, I'm dead. You
Speaker 4: killed me and it hurt. And there's this sort of
Speaker 4: very grim image of Gambino with his his still talking
Speaker 4: with his neck. Halfway through uh again, we see more
Speaker 4: and more of this kind of surreal element. You know,
Speaker 4: the dog is transformed into the plague stricken vision of
Speaker 4: his adopted mother and you know, as the the monster
Speaker 4: bears down on him, right with the face of Donovan,
Speaker 4: he sees, you know, Gambido and his adopted mother skeletons
Speaker 4: right saying over and over again, you should have died. So,
Speaker 4: you know, just again a very grim scene.
Speaker 3: Man, it's so heartbreaking how much guilt he carries for this.
Speaker 3: He imagine, feeling guilty for killing fucking Gambino. Bro right,
Speaker 3: Like that is the like I something I think is
Speaker 3: so important about Guts, right, something to keep in mind.
Speaker 3: Guts is a deeply empathetic and sensitive person. He know,
Speaker 3: like he's not just because he is hard on the outside, right,
Speaker 3: because he because he understands I have to shield myself
Speaker 3: from the world right, his truth, the core of him
Speaker 3: is the one that feels guilty for killing a man
Speaker 3: who could not have abused him. More, he feels guilt
Speaker 3: for the fact that this woman they took him in
Speaker 3: and then died, even though he had nothing to do
Speaker 3: with him. He feels guilty for being this cursed child,
Speaker 3: despite the fact that there's no real evidence that's the case.
Speaker 3: It's just the hearsay, the happenstance, the way of the world,
Speaker 3: and the way people will see him as a result. Right,
Speaker 3: It's like how being a bastard was or being a
Speaker 3: fucking albinos In some parts of the world, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, they're like, ah, that's fucked up and weird, right,
Speaker 3: And now all of a sudden, you have a terrible
Speaker 3: life as a result of something you have no control over,
Speaker 3: a complete coin flip. You had nothing to do with it,
Speaker 3: nothing to do with your personality or who you are.
Speaker 3: It's just that makes me fucking feel fucked up. So
Speaker 3: that's the way it is now, right, this kid has
Speaker 3: to bear that burden, right, And you see, despite his
Speaker 3: facade or sort of demeanor, the way he carries himself,
Speaker 3: this still weighs very heavily upon him. He feels it
Speaker 3: right every second, seemingly there's a reason that he doesn't
Speaker 3: let people touch him. So yeah, this is the you know,
Speaker 3: and again Mirror is not He's not like Miri is
Speaker 3: is and Berserk is full of subtlety, right, but he's
Speaker 3: not always relying upon that, sometimes just showing you obviously
Speaker 3: this is the case. And to be fair, also this
Speaker 3: was written in like the early nineties, so this was
Speaker 3: subtle for them, you know what I mean now by
Speaker 3: the standards of the medium, especially right exactly the medium
Speaker 3: and the time, you know, this is this is like,
Speaker 3: this is like you know, this is this is the
Speaker 3: most progressive, you know, like it's very like, wow, he's
Speaker 3: really showing it, you know. But yeah, no, nowadays, right,
Speaker 3: we look at this and it's like, yeah, no, it's
Speaker 3: clear what is happening here? Right, So guts after, you know,
Speaker 3: we see this vision, uh, we see these sort of
Speaker 3: vague images of him in bed with a woman, don't
Speaker 3: know quite who. He wakes up, he is in the
Speaker 3: Mercenary band. He sees, you know, Griffith, which he obviously remembers,
Speaker 3: and then Cosca talking and Cosca just walks up to
Speaker 3: him and smacks him right, says, you know, I wish
Speaker 3: you die. He's obviously in a lot of pain, and
Speaker 3: it's confirmed that, you know, Griffith told Costa like, hey,
Speaker 3: hop in bed with Guts. He's lost a lot of blood.
Speaker 3: You need to keep him alive, so, you know, insinuating
Speaker 3: why she's a little mad at him, and also sort
Speaker 3: of laying the grounds for their romance later. But as
Speaker 3: you know, he walks up to Griffith, Griffith hands him
Speaker 3: his sword, you know, saying like, oh wow, this is
Speaker 3: really incredible. Two of them start talking. You know, we
Speaker 3: get some more characterization of the other kind of members
Speaker 3: of this crew. Right, I'm skipping over for the sake
Speaker 3: of time. This is interesting. But basically he says, you know,
Speaker 3: like we were in the same battle together. And the
Speaker 3: two of them stand on top of the hill and
Speaker 3: you know, griff that ask him like, well, why didn't
Speaker 3: you kill me? And Griffith says something we will hear
Speaker 3: him say many times, because I want you. Of course,
Speaker 3: Guts is like, dude, that's pretty gay. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: Kind of funny, right, but Griffith decides, no, like I
Speaker 4: saw you know how you fight. I saw that, you know,
Speaker 4: the way that you sort of deliberately gamble on your
Speaker 4: own life, and it's like, oh, that's really impressive.
Speaker 3: I love that. I love this aspect Griffith. He understands
Speaker 3: who he's looking at so well, and it really shows
Speaker 3: who this kind of who this guy really is. He's
Speaker 3: a person who understands other human beings. And not only that,
Speaker 3: but he has a respect for a certain type of
Speaker 3: human beings. He's Nietzsche in this way, right. He respects
Speaker 3: the will, He respects a person who will walk the
Speaker 3: tightrope because that is the kind of life that he
Speaker 3: lives and the kind of life that he wants to
Speaker 3: continue to live.
Speaker 2: Uh uh.
Speaker 3: And not just that, but Griffith is also a pragmatic person.
Speaker 3: Why does he want guts Because guts is fucking useful,
Speaker 3: That's why. Because he can use guts and both in
Speaker 3: a possessive way and in a in a in a
Speaker 3: sort of let more more familiar way. Because I don't
Speaker 3: think Griffith, especially in the in the early parts of this,
Speaker 3: I don't think Griffith is just a manipulative psycho. That's
Speaker 3: not as simple as that. Griffith is a very interesting character.
Speaker 3: There's a reason that so many people identify with Griffith
Speaker 3: and Guts, right, but Griffith in particular, because Griffith has
Speaker 3: a like. Griffith has a dream. We all have that, right,
Speaker 3: I think. I think any one of us that isn't
Speaker 3: just you know, some sort of like Shudra like fucking Highlich.
Speaker 3: We all have dreams. We all have uh an ambition
Speaker 3: or desire that we that we that we want to
Speaker 3: strive for. And Griffith exemplifies that extremely well, and he
Speaker 3: is willing to cooperate with other people to make that happen.
Speaker 3: He understands that he can't necessarily do it alone, and
Speaker 3: he will stand on the shoulders of others to do it,
Speaker 3: but he will do it right. And once he sees guns,
Speaker 3: he realizes that this guy, this guy is going to
Speaker 3: be a pivotal part of this. He has this like
Speaker 3: foresight to understand what he's looking at. So Griffith is
Speaker 3: a deeply ambitious person. He's a deeply he's a person
Speaker 3: who looks to the future. And he's young. Clearly, they're
Speaker 3: all like the same age ish, right, they're all young people.
Speaker 3: But Griffith is not like the rest of them, and
Speaker 3: that's why he runs the show. That's why he's the hawk, right.
Speaker 3: He has a mind that is operating at another level
Speaker 3: compared to the people around him. And not just that
Speaker 3: he is ambitious and all of that stuff, but he's
Speaker 3: also skilled. He has the ability to back up his will.
Speaker 3: He's not just guy who has a lot of talk.
Speaker 3: He will walk the walk as well. And that is
Speaker 3: what this last little duel is. It is the solidification
Speaker 3: that Griffith is not just words. Griffith is for real
Speaker 3: and Guts learns that as well. Right, he is willing.
Speaker 3: This fight is fantastic. I love it, right, the saber
Speaker 3: versus the big sword. Right, it's sick. You're muted, you're muted.
Speaker 4: Incredibly professionally professional podcaster. You're correct. This is very well drawn.
Speaker 4: We see obviously the visual contrast, also the fighting style contrast.
Speaker 4: You know, gust is using these huge aggressive swings where
Speaker 4: Griffith with his sabers very deftly parrying, you know. And
Speaker 4: Griffith makes him an offer, basically says like, hey, do
Speaker 4: you do you want to be one of my guys
Speaker 4: and gout says no, right, very similar to the offer
Speaker 4: given him by the nobleman. Uh so the two of them,
Speaker 4: you fight it out. Right, Guts essentially says, if.
Speaker 3: You beat me, I'll do whatever you want. I don't
Speaker 3: really care, right, and then he gets absolutely styled.
Speaker 4: On in an iconic moment. Right, and this is something
Speaker 4: that will be again. You'll see this image repeated again
Speaker 4: and again. He makes a crazy aggressive swing and Griffith
Speaker 4: jumps on top of the sword, right, pinning it down,
Speaker 4: and he's completely at his mercy. Right, sword at the
Speaker 4: throat basically says like, yeah, you'll do anything to win,
Speaker 4: even sacrifice, you know, your own life. I really like that.
Speaker 4: But guess what I got you? And what Gods does
Speaker 4: is he bites down on the sword.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: He's again willing to sacrifice his own body to a
Speaker 4: truly psychotic degree to win. And what he does is,
Speaker 4: you know, he basically uses the sword trapped in his
Speaker 4: teeth the other one to like launch Griffith over.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and now it's a fistfight, right, it's ugly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Then he makes it dirty. Yeah, he makes it,
Speaker 3: which is great, Right, it's great. It's the emblematic of, again,
Speaker 3: the kind of person that Guts is. If I can't
Speaker 3: beat you, fuck that I'm gonna beat you. I don't care. Right,
Speaker 3: I will make it happen. I will figure it out.
Speaker 3: I will turn it into a different thing. Right and again,
Speaker 3: beautiful characterization. Right you expect. Oh, Griffith doesn't have it,
Speaker 3: have it? Right? He now? Now he's on the back foot.
Speaker 3: Now guts has got him because he made it ugly.
Speaker 3: This pretty boy doesn't have it. And that is not
Speaker 3: the case. That is not that spits his own blood
Speaker 3: in his face. Right, Griffith picks up, and then we
Speaker 3: get this, We get this first glimpse. We get this
Speaker 3: first glimpse. Look at his face. That is rapture. That
Speaker 3: is like like nirvonic joy. And why because Griffith in
Speaker 3: that moment, it's not a oh, it's a reveal of
Speaker 3: Griffith's evil. It's not so simple. That is what Griffith
Speaker 3: looks like when he knows he is going to win,
Speaker 3: when he knows he's going to get what he wants.
Speaker 3: That's the face he makes because he knows that it's checkmate.
Speaker 3: As soon as this happens, it initiates the sequence of
Speaker 3: grappling that leads to the the yeah, he dislocates in
Speaker 3: the arm. Right, gets him perfect, and it's like the
Speaker 3: Griffith has this moment of like ecstasy, like yes, yes,
Speaker 3: I get it. And that really what it shows is
Speaker 3: the only time that Griffiths will like like crack the
Speaker 3: perfect facade is when he's getting what he wants. And
Speaker 3: he shows that like that like glee, almost like childlike
Speaker 3: glee of like yes, I'm getting what I desire right now.
Speaker 4: And in a moment that's a little more sinister, right,
Speaker 4: we see that kind of angelic visage, slightly twisted. Right,
Speaker 4: he looks him dead in the eye and says like
Speaker 4: you're mine now, like you're you're one of my band.
Speaker 3: Uh. And so.
Speaker 4: Time sort of continues on. Right, guts Is is injured.
Speaker 4: Obviously he's had his uh you know, his arm completely
Speaker 4: and totally uh you know, dislocated. We get some more
Speaker 4: kind of commentary, you know, where the other members of
Speaker 4: the Band of the Hawk are kind of going back
Speaker 4: and forth. We also see that at least currently, Costca
Speaker 4: and Guts do not get along at all, but nonetheless, right,
Speaker 4: they're prepared for a battle. Uh you know, everyone is
Speaker 4: you know on side, right, Guts and Costa everyone, Uh,
Speaker 4: I'm skipping over a little bit because we have a
Speaker 4: little bit of a time constraint, but this is still
Speaker 4: very you know, good characterization.
Speaker 3: And ultimately what we're doing here is we're moving through it. Right.
Speaker 3: But everyone, you must read this, if you have any
Speaker 3: right interest or desire, you must read these things, all
Speaker 3: of the subtle moments, all the little things that the
Speaker 3: interpersonal relationships between the band members, all of that stuff
Speaker 3: is deeply pivotal because these are the relationships that are
Speaker 3: going to define the rest of Guts's life. These are
Speaker 3: the people that he will come to know as friends
Speaker 3: and comrades. These are the people that he will be
Speaker 3: willing to for the first time, put his life on
Speaker 3: the line for because every other time in guts his life,
Speaker 3: the only time that he really risked his life was
Speaker 3: for his own sake, right, for his own life or
Speaker 3: of his own survival. But these people, these are true comrades. Right.
Speaker 3: In Japanese, there's friend, the word friend tomodachi, right, which
Speaker 3: is like a friend or acquaintance person that you know, right.
Speaker 3: But na kama is like comrade, it's like brother. It
Speaker 3: means a close bond of true life, like this is
Speaker 3: a this is a this is we are we are brothers.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, Like this, we we we
Speaker 3: we have the same goals, we have the same enemies,
Speaker 3: we have the same uh uh uh uh loves and hate.
Speaker 3: We are we are, we are as one line. Right,
Speaker 3: that is what that word means. And that's why when
Speaker 3: he finally attributes that to these people, to the Band
Speaker 3: of the Hawk, right, this is a completely different world
Speaker 3: from the world he grew up in, a world where
Speaker 3: he was it was essentially dog eat dog and at
Speaker 3: his most vulnerable right now, when he finally has the
Speaker 3: strength to be on his own, he learns two I
Speaker 3: guess the best way to put it is like he
Speaker 3: learns once it's like it's like the Band of the
Speaker 3: Hawk teachers. And once he has the strength to live
Speaker 3: on his own, to survive on his own, he learns
Speaker 3: that he doesn't have to do you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: He learns that you don't have to go to sleep
Speaker 3: expecting people are gonna come kill you, you don't have
Speaker 3: to sleep with a blade, you don't have to do
Speaker 3: these things. You can live a life in which the
Speaker 3: people around you are your are people that you can
Speaker 3: trust to have your back. And that's what he learns
Speaker 3: with the band. Right. That's why this, this part of
Speaker 3: the story is so so so important to this guy
Speaker 3: because before his life was nothing but suffering. His life
Speaker 3: was nothing but pain. His life was nothing but hoping
Speaker 3: that the people around you aren't going to betray you
Speaker 3: or kill you or try to fucking uh you know,
Speaker 3: send the Donovan after you. Right, this is the is
Speaker 3: the other side. It's the it's the it's the heel, right,
Speaker 3: it's the it's the moment in which a person can
Speaker 3: heal finally from from their wounds. And that's why this
Speaker 3: is so important. That's why I love it so much.
Speaker 3: It's why everyone loves the Golden Age so much, because
Speaker 3: you get to see your boy having a nice life
Speaker 3: for a little bit, you know.
Speaker 4: Well, and you're completely correct, And we're also in this
Speaker 4: next scene getting some characterization Griffith.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Effectively, we learned that he is a very capable commander. Right,
Speaker 4: he launches this audacious surprise attack, right, taking these horses
Speaker 4: up a river, and it's just full route right again,
Speaker 4: very well drawn. Right, this is one of many kind
Speaker 4: of iconic cavalry charges. But nonetheless, right, the bend of
Speaker 4: the hawk is just you know, laying waste to them
Speaker 4: and to me.
Speaker 3: Griffith is like he's like Alexander, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: He has that same aura, that same everyone gets swept
Speaker 3: up in it, right, and and the and the acumen,
Speaker 3: the ability. It's not just that he has a legend.
Speaker 3: He actually is that guy. You know. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 3: I think. That's the best real world parallel for the
Speaker 3: characterization of Griffin Griffith at this point. Well, and you know,
Speaker 3: as the the volume concludes, this will lead us into
Speaker 3: our last discussion. Uh we see there's a counter attack
Speaker 3: right this the siege has started, you know, the general
Speaker 3: has launched out, you know, some cavalry to uh you know,
Speaker 3: to to route this uh surprise attack. And uh yeah,
Speaker 3: that's where we pick up at our next discussion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, Rinus, welcome to Jay Burns Show.
Speaker 3: How you doing that? Not bad? You know, I've been
Speaker 3: u I've been anticipating this one. This is an exciting
Speaker 3: one for me. I love this ship, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Big.
Speaker 4: Sword Guys, I've been anticipating. This is a nice way
Speaker 4: to say your ship it scheduling and we should have
Speaker 4: done this a month and a half ago, yet made
Speaker 4: it that way.
Speaker 3: But but but I've I've definitely like it's not even that.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like, you know, we got together to
Speaker 3: do this, right, we were recommended, uh sort of uh
Speaker 3: to to link up, right, because I've wanted to talk
Speaker 3: about this, this one for for forever, right, Like I
Speaker 3: think they're you know, everybody knows. Everybody knows this by now,
Speaker 3: I think, right, I think I think berserk is it
Speaker 3: has sort of reached a level of cultural saturation all anime. Right,
Speaker 3: There's been a huge wave of this. It's been kind
Speaker 3: of very interesting to see the rise of this medium
Speaker 3: in the West as as a kid who like, man,
Speaker 3: you know, I was there was a time frame where
Speaker 3: you would be made fun of if you watch Japanese
Speaker 3: cartoons even though everybody was still children, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, it didn't even make sense. It was like
Speaker 3: that's childish. It's like, dude, we're eleven years old, what
Speaker 3: are you? What are you talking about? Right? So, you know,
Speaker 3: I was a DBZ watcher and even like Sailor Moon
Speaker 3: back in the day, right, So to watch the rise
Speaker 3: of it, to watch become sort of like a firmly
Speaker 3: implanted within the cultural zeitgeist and become almost like overburnt,
Speaker 3: Like oversaturated is crazy, right, but berserk is is something
Speaker 3: that I think is kind of like a It's like
Speaker 3: an old weathered rock that things you know, like orbit
Speaker 3: run or slash around. Right, the water's rise and fall,
Speaker 3: but this thing stays there, and it's been there for
Speaker 3: a reason. And I think this arc, in particular, the
Speaker 3: Golden Age is is the foundation of that mountain, right
Speaker 3: Like this, this, this is where Mirror shows that he
Speaker 3: isn't just writing something that is essentially a kind of
Speaker 3: like a rip off of Fists of the North Star,
Speaker 3: you know, and instead we're making something that's really considered
Speaker 3: and willing to go places that most of these things
Speaker 3: are not are not willing to go. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I think I come at this slightly
Speaker 4: differently because you know, I when I was growing up,
Speaker 4: anime was sort of starting it like cultural ascendency, like
Speaker 4: it had very much become.
Speaker 3: Something Okay, Okay, yeah, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like
Speaker 3: a decade older than you, right, so just slightly but
Speaker 3: same same for me, it was even even less than
Speaker 3: what you're saying, right, Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: It was a it was a rise, but it at
Speaker 3: our time, it was like almost nobody, almost nobody watched this,
Speaker 3: like only little kids watch this shit. Other than that,
Speaker 3: it was like considered like very you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: but sorry, go ahead, go ahead, no no.
Speaker 4: And so it was interesting because when I grew up,
Speaker 4: it was it was sort of part of the like
Speaker 4: mainstream alt identity, you know, where you were like just
Speaker 4: a little bit out of you know, mainstream culture for
Speaker 4: whatever that works, but still very much an acceptable normal
Speaker 4: thing to do, right, safe edgy, as the kids would say.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: And what's interesting is that certain aspects of you know,
Speaker 4: Japanese culture can or cannot be a similar into that.
Speaker 4: You know, for instance, like on the video game side,
Speaker 4: you see things like dead or Alive, which is just
Speaker 4: like absolutely hated by the kind of like Reddit mod
Speaker 4: crowd because bio squarely and except normans, normies cannot stand
Speaker 4: the kino. Yeah, and and Berserkers. Berserk is in sort
Speaker 4: of a similar position. And so you'll you'll see this
Speaker 4: dialogue come up from time to time talking about the
Speaker 4: prevalence of you know, there's a lot of adult material
Speaker 4: in this right, there's a lot of sexual assault, there's
Speaker 4: a lot of you know violence, there's a death, yeah,
Speaker 4: one hundred percent, Like that's to be perfectly blunt about it. Yes,
Speaker 4: and look like this isn't like a if you even
Speaker 4: have to say it, it's not like a pro thing.
Speaker 3: But no, it handles it horrifically. It's like it's like
Speaker 3: it's like, I don't think anything handles as well as berserk.
Speaker 3: And that's crazy because of the way that I understand
Speaker 3: exactly what you're talking. There's a discourse and a perception
Speaker 3: around berserk that it's essentially like like it's like it
Speaker 3: revels in degrading and destroying the female characters, and it
Speaker 3: revels in especially Cosca. You know what I mean, I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't agree with that even upon reread write as
Speaker 3: a as Like when I first read this, I was
Speaker 3: like nineteen right, or actually I was probably seventeen right.
Speaker 3: You know, at the time, I was into anime. I
Speaker 3: liked anime a lot, right like I and I was
Speaker 3: more into manga even because I early on I read
Speaker 3: like the some kid at my school brought a shown
Speaker 3: and jump once in eighth grade and that like that
Speaker 3: one event, like you know what I mean, Like I
Speaker 3: read through it and I was like, holy shit, Like
Speaker 3: in it was like Naruto, Bleach, you you hacker show fuck.
Speaker 3: It was just it was like all killer, no filler. Right,
Speaker 3: So I was like, this is this stuff is way
Speaker 3: cooler than the stuff that I most of the stuff
Speaker 3: that I've seen, Right, it was sort of very shocking
Speaker 3: for young me. Right. So, growing up, I rabbit towards
Speaker 3: the manga side. I read Berserk, I read or sorry,
Speaker 3: I read Bleach, I read Nards so as they were
Speaker 3: coming out, but I had never read anything like Berserk
Speaker 3: at the time. Right. It was so much more you know,
Speaker 3: for lack of better words, it was so much more mature.
Speaker 3: It was so much more it was considered, it was
Speaker 3: more even, it was it was more elaborate artistically. It
Speaker 3: was just it was just it felt like an evolution
Speaker 3: right of the medium, despite the fact that it came out,
Speaker 3: you know, it started in the eighties, right, Mirrors just.
Speaker 4: Honestly, like, I'm not really a fan of of anime
Speaker 4: or manga, It's not really my thing. But to me,
Speaker 4: I sort of view this in the same realm as
Speaker 4: like you know, Akira or something like that, where it
Speaker 4: almost transcends the medium, Like this is and even the
Speaker 4: kind of guy who reads manga is in you know,
Speaker 4: kind of derogatorily referred to as a weepad. It's really
Speaker 4: good before we jump into it, because I want to
Speaker 4: get into the you know, the segment we're reading. Two things. One, dude,
Speaker 4: I have never started a series and gotten more people
Speaker 4: chimping out at me to continue it now. Part of
Speaker 4: that is because there was a big gap between episode
Speaker 4: one and episode two of this series, right. The other
Speaker 4: part is people really are interested in this topic. So
Speaker 4: I'm excited about that. But I got a message after
Speaker 4: the last one came out from a buddy of mine.
Speaker 4: He lives here locally, and you know, he's listened to
Speaker 4: the show every once in a while, and so I
Speaker 4: got this message at like ten am on a Sunday, says,
Speaker 4: I'll have you know, I read all of Berserk. It's
Speaker 4: a bit much, but damn it was really good. And
Speaker 4: I think that's about the best review I could get,
Speaker 4: right someone as it gets Yeah, a bit much is
Speaker 4: a way to put it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so the last the last section I did right,
Speaker 4: the Black Swordsman arc is both functions as sort of
Speaker 4: a you know, a primer, right, you meet the character,
Speaker 4: but also it's an earlier, less developed version of absolutely.
Speaker 4: Absolutely it's sort of the it was sort of the
Speaker 4: pitch deck, if you.
Speaker 3: You know. In preparation for this, I reread everything up
Speaker 3: to the up to basically when Zod goes, all right, boy,
Speaker 3: it's time to show you what the fuck is up
Speaker 3: right and the black Swordsman. Man, it's insane. That arc
Speaker 3: is like it's like a it's a completely different thing,
Speaker 3: like especially like the first like three or four chapters.
Speaker 3: It's like this feels like a different manga, like it.
Speaker 3: Clearly he didn't really know what Brijik was at the time, right.
Speaker 3: He just wanted to make like a thing about a
Speaker 3: cool guy who fucking kicks people's asses and slashes them
Speaker 3: in half with a giant fucking sword, right, because that rules,
Speaker 3: and at the time, to be fair, right, to be
Speaker 3: fair to him. Right. It's so funny how he's the
Speaker 3: water that people are swimming in and they don't even
Speaker 3: really realize it, right, And not to say that Mirror
Speaker 3: is some sort of like you know, uh, visionary innovator.
Speaker 3: That is not his skill. His skill is like it
Speaker 3: is fine tune, like like uh, those skills it's not
Speaker 3: necessarily about like, Wow, he's made something that has changed
Speaker 3: all of fiction, like you know, something like a like
Speaker 3: a like a token. He's not doing that, right. What
Speaker 3: what Mirror was doing, especially at the beginning, was he
Speaker 3: clearly clearly really liked Fist of the north Star, right,
Speaker 3: because Berserk is essentially what if Ken Schiro was an asshole?
Speaker 3: This is the north Stars. Whole thing is that is
Speaker 3: that the main character is like he's like he's the
Speaker 3: ultimate moral guy, right, Like he's like a shit night
Speaker 3: and shining armor always says the right thing, and he's
Speaker 3: like pretty much invincible, right, whereas you know in in Berserk, right,
Speaker 3: despite the fact that you know, Guts is also like
Speaker 3: a sort of wandering a wandering form of justice. He
Speaker 3: is his own moral compass, right, and he doesn't follow
Speaker 3: like a like a sort of like a social ethic. Right.
Speaker 3: He's he's very antisocial and he's absolutely effective and super brutal, right,
Speaker 3: So he has that Canhiro power, but he doesn't have
Speaker 3: that Canhiro ethical framework. In many ways, I've I've heard
Speaker 3: I I personally have not read the og Devilman because
Speaker 3: that's what this stuff is like inspired by just so
Speaker 3: everybody understands, right, uh uh. Devil Devilman cry Baby is
Speaker 3: a recently made Netflix show that is Devil Man like
Speaker 3: a sort of like a reboot, but the og Devilman
Speaker 3: is like I'm talking about these are these are things
Speaker 3: like the way that Astro Boy is part of Japanese
Speaker 3: you know, like cultural framework. Devil Man is the same thing.
Speaker 3: It is. It is like an og uh comic book
Speaker 3: series that everybody knows. So Mirror is a big fan
Speaker 3: of that, and Devilman also has a sort of Griffith
Speaker 3: like character. But those were his inspirations and you can
Speaker 3: see that, especially in the in the Black Swordsman arc
Speaker 3: that he kind of just wanted to make something like
Speaker 3: fits of the North Star. But Golden Age. That's where
Speaker 3: this really like comes alive, right, you see hints of
Speaker 3: it at the end of the Black Swordsman arc. Obviously,
Speaker 3: the last chapters of Black Swordsmen are like explicitly like
Speaker 3: he okay, he figured out what he wants to do
Speaker 3: with this, right, you see femto right, you see the
Speaker 3: God hand, right, all of that stuff with that last
Speaker 3: apostle is really interesting. But then it's like, okay, how
Speaker 3: do we get here? Right, and he gives it to you,
Speaker 3: and it starts in a way that you know, this
Speaker 3: is spectacular. I think this is such a good way
Speaker 3: to start with. This character is right, like this kid
Speaker 3: is literally born from a corpse, right, he's he We'll
Speaker 3: get into that. We'll get into that.
Speaker 4: You trying to avoid any any direct spoilers for the
Speaker 4: guys kind of reading along with us.
Speaker 3: Oh if you, if you are watching this and you
Speaker 3: have not read Berserk, what I would suggest is for
Speaker 3: you to stop and go read it at least read
Speaker 3: up to where we are talking, which is let me
Speaker 3: just let me just make sure I'm correct here.
Speaker 4: Well, dude, what I've done is I've just included the
Speaker 4: link to a pirate site where you can see it
Speaker 4: all on your computer for free. Like right, the first thing,
Speaker 4: like everyone like the physical stuff's great, Everyone should.
Speaker 3: Read manga online for free. And then once you've decided, wow,
Speaker 3: this is a work that is beautiful and I really
Speaker 3: want to contribute to this person's coffers, then by their
Speaker 3: stuff if you want. I don't care. I've read. I
Speaker 3: can't even thousands and thousands of chapters of things that
Speaker 3: I was not allowed and I don't give a shit, right.
Speaker 3: This is this is the way. The only reason that
Speaker 3: manga is and an anime are the culturals like guess
Speaker 3: that they are these days is because of these websites.
Speaker 3: It's not because everybody was out buying fucking anime DVDs.
Speaker 3: That's not what people do. They go to anime pirate
Speaker 3: or they go to pirated anime websites, or they go
Speaker 3: to pirate mango websites and they read them and then
Speaker 3: if they love it, they buy it, or they fucking
Speaker 3: go to Japan. They turn people into fucking like cultists. Man,
Speaker 3: It's it's like, it's it's worth. That's why they allow
Speaker 3: it to happen, in my opinion, because I don't think
Speaker 3: that these companies would have the hardest time going for
Speaker 3: these these kinds of these kind of websites regardless, I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: you should probably go read because I'm going to do
Speaker 3: my best to not these spoilery. But it's difficult to
Speaker 3: really talk about the meat of this thing without revealing
Speaker 3: a lot of aspects of this because a lot of
Speaker 3: it is like it's in many ways Bzurk is a maximalist, right,
Speaker 3: But there's so much of the really good stuff is
Speaker 3: really understated, you know, even just looks things like that
Speaker 3: right in this in this some dish. But yeah, this
Speaker 3: kid is clearly in the Black Swordsman Arc. Gots has
Speaker 3: some issues with other people, right. He really despises being touched,
Speaker 3: can't stand it. It doesn't matter who's touching him either, right,
Speaker 3: he is he doesn't really have very much value for
Speaker 3: human life at all. He is willing to kill innocence.
Speaker 3: Only really one death hurts him in the whole thing,
Speaker 3: and that's the little girl and her and her and
Speaker 3: her like old man Dad, he's like traveling and you
Speaker 3: know he gets attacked by because of the brand, right,
Speaker 3: he gets attacked and these two people get sort of
Speaker 3: caught in the crossfire, right, and he he ends up
Speaker 3: destroying this child's body that gets possessed and it does
Speaker 3: damage him. He cries about it, I believe, which you
Speaker 3: never see up to that point, right, he never really
Speaker 3: shows that aspect of himself. It's important to.
Speaker 4: Say, and we've said this before, that that chronologically we're
Speaker 4: we're stepping back, right, the blast words and Arc occurs
Speaker 4: after this, so we're getting more context, but also in
Speaker 4: real time, right, this was done later, so we start
Speaker 4: off just right in the middle of a battle. And
Speaker 4: in the first episode, you remember that I said there's
Speaker 4: a lot of amazing art and great kind of historical
Speaker 4: arms and armor. This panel is a great example of that, right,
Speaker 4: just this massive battle. Obviously this is sort of paying
Speaker 4: homage to the historical one hundred Years War, right, this
Speaker 4: conflict where there are lots of mercenaries running around. Guts
Speaker 4: himself is the is you know, is a part of
Speaker 4: you know, one of these bands. Uh So the battle
Speaker 4: is again rendered in in gory detail, and then there's
Speaker 4: this this troop of you know, armed armored knights that
Speaker 4: come in and instead of right, you know, fighting that
Speaker 4: with a you know, an actual force, Guts rides out himself, right,
Speaker 4: and again we see the sort of like very you know,
Speaker 4: dutifully rendered you know, gore as he kind of cuts
Speaker 4: them through. Again, a great kind of double spread of
Speaker 4: him going into it. I'm not going to go through
Speaker 4: and scroll through the entire thing, but I will show
Speaker 4: kind of choice panels that are particularly relevant or interesting
Speaker 4: as we go through it, and a lot.
Speaker 3: Of they're the like prototypical of Mirror's style and what
Speaker 3: to expect of this manga. The the big cleave is
Speaker 3: basically the guts, bread and butter, like he's he What
Speaker 3: I love about him as a character is that he's
Speaker 3: clearly unbelievably skilled, right he but he fights in the
Speaker 3: most brute force way. I love that about him. He's
Speaker 3: not gonna go like he doesn't care about going for
Speaker 3: the gaps in your armor. He doesn't care about trying
Speaker 3: to sort of like beat you with footwork and then
Speaker 3: you know, get outside of your guard. He just cuts
Speaker 3: through it and no one expects that. No one expects
Speaker 3: the he's able to do that. It's considered like superhuman
Speaker 3: in the universe, which I appreciate. Right, Guts is considered
Speaker 3: like imagine seeing somebody do that, man, imagine watching somebody
Speaker 3: cleave with a sword through plate armor that doesn't even
Speaker 3: make like like what is that's like magic shit? Like
Speaker 3: what is going on with that? What is that guy taking? Right?
Speaker 3: So he is a force? Right this this chapter right
Speaker 3: what I appreciated, But I just realized that sort of
Speaker 3: like the the format of this like properly right. This
Speaker 3: chapter in particular, I love this because it's it's sort
Speaker 3: of the first time that he gets the first time
Speaker 3: that you see guts in a in a in a
Speaker 3: position of of responsibility to a degree, right, this is
Speaker 3: a a reveal of him after a time has passed.
Speaker 3: I do also love the aspect that he's fighting these
Speaker 3: sort of like something that Japanese authors do a lot,
Speaker 3: and I think it's it's kind of there's a lot
Speaker 3: of soul in this. It's sort of it reminds me
Speaker 3: a lot of like a you know, like sort of
Speaker 3: like nineteen fifties like greaser sort of sort of like
Speaker 3: like like street gang called like oh, we're like street sharks,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, like that that kind of
Speaker 3: ship like snapping at each other. Right. Yeah. The Japs
Speaker 3: have this thing too with with with you know this
Speaker 3: this this uh, this unit that they're that the Band
Speaker 3: of the Hawk is fighting against. Right, they're called like
Speaker 3: the like black Iron Rams heavy cavalry, right, Like they
Speaker 3: have like a ton of these. It's like, yeah, tons
Speaker 3: of them across the Munket, there are tons of them.
Speaker 3: I love this. I love this part of It's very typical,
Speaker 3: especially of Japanese stuff at this time frame in the
Speaker 3: net because I think this this part was being written
Speaker 3: in the nineties. Yeah, most of the Golden ages written
Speaker 3: in the nineties, I believe he was. He was he
Speaker 3: was fast burning in the nineties, but it's still done significantly.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I love that he's fighting sort of like this,
Speaker 3: like they all have there's you know, special ram helmets
Speaker 3: and right, they're like they're like they're like a gang. Right.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of like, you know, also like Japanese
Speaker 3: biker gangs all of that, righting the sort of like
Speaker 3: connection to the culture, right, I love that. I love
Speaker 3: that he chose to do.
Speaker 4: This, and honestly, man, like it's again, this is fantasy.
Speaker 4: Although it's interesting at this point is that we we
Speaker 4: see Guts witness something magical or supernatural for the first
Speaker 4: time in the.
Speaker 3: Sense this is the first time that that really happens.
Speaker 3: You know, yes, and you know that that whole thing
Speaker 3: of having your your mercenary crew with a cool name
Speaker 3: and a banner and something you do, Yeah, it happened.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, exactly, It's like it's the desire, right that.
Speaker 3: I cannot tell you how much I devoured this arc
Speaker 3: when I read it the first time, right at seventeen
Speaker 3: years old, I was like, this is like, this is
Speaker 3: the coolest thing ever imagine just fuck and just you know,
Speaker 3: getting after it with your bros. Right that this is
Speaker 3: sick and you like your main guy is the coolest
Speaker 3: guy ever, right, and we we have to talk about Griffith, right,
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: So we're we're introduced to Griffith because he the leader
Speaker 4: of you know, Guts Mercenary Company rides in on horseback
Speaker 4: to save him. Right again, this kind of double panel
Speaker 4: you see, to basically back him up as he's kind
Speaker 4: of you know, weighed down with you know, all of
Speaker 4: these like armored knights. And again this is just the introduction.
Speaker 4: He is a major character, and in fact, he is
Speaker 4: referenced in the kind of closing of this segment.
Speaker 3: To be to be to be to be clear, this
Speaker 3: is not the introduction of Guts in the or sorry
Speaker 3: of Griffith and the Golden Age. This is this is
Speaker 3: post time skip. This is right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: was just reading this earlier today because just to like
Speaker 3: keep it in my mind. Right, this is post time skip.
Speaker 3: So there is the entire remember how their first meeting, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: Guts is not meeting Griffith. We are as the audience,
Speaker 3: is what I meant to say, no, because there's a
Speaker 3: whole section in which in which, like, okay, there's a battle,
Speaker 3: Guts beats a guy, Griffith sees him do this, then
Speaker 3: Guts leaves with the money. Griffith's boys watch him leave,
Speaker 3: right and they it's Corcus, you know, the like the
Speaker 3: like he's like the designated like oh.
Speaker 4: See in my and maybe this is just the site
Speaker 4: I'm looking at it that is later I might be
Speaker 4: looking at a mixed up version. So that's entire that's
Speaker 4: definitely the part you're talking.
Speaker 3: About that Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, but
Speaker 3: you no, No, this is this is the Golden Age
Speaker 3: is done and chronologically from the time that like literally
Speaker 3: from the time that in which Gambino finds Guts. It's
Speaker 3: almost immediately it starts there, brother, yeah, it starts there.
Speaker 4: Well, this is incredibly professional podcasting.
Speaker 3: It's okay, it's it's okay because all of this, all
Speaker 3: of this sort of works. The chapters we're talking about
Speaker 3: are are are still doing everything that is like they're
Speaker 3: like they're almost like the prototypical aspect of it, but
Speaker 3: there's aspects at the beginning that that that must be discussed, right, Like,
Speaker 3: like all of gots his childhood and all of that stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, honestly, I'm annoyed because I'm looking through the files
Speaker 4: ahead and those are right after this.
Speaker 3: So here's what we'll do.
Speaker 4: Uh on again, We'll go through that because that is
Speaker 4: much needed backstory. And that's also why you're probably used
Speaker 4: what I was talking about.
Speaker 3: I was a little confused first, but it's all good.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah again, guys, professional podcaster here who uh can't
Speaker 4: use files in order. But that said, we will cover that,
Speaker 4: right yeah. Uh so, yes, So this is the you know,
Speaker 4: Griffith kind of rides in to save him here. We
Speaker 4: see a scene afterwards where Cosca you know, another character
Speaker 4: will become you know, referenced much more as we go
Speaker 4: into this later it okay, yeah, she basically dresses him out.
Speaker 4: We learn from some of the background characters that the
Speaker 4: two of them have a rival, or have a rivalry rather,
Speaker 4: they can't stand each other. They're kind of vying for,
Speaker 4: you know, their their position under Griffith, you know that
Speaker 4: the charismatic leader here, and then we move to actually
Speaker 4: a pretty interesting scene. So I'm going over this not
Speaker 4: because it's you know, unimportant, but just because you know,
Speaker 4: we'll refer back to this a little bit later and
Speaker 4: get you know, it'll make sense later, right when we
Speaker 4: go through the kind of rest of this, you know,
Speaker 4: immediate chapter. Is there anything else you want to cover?
Speaker 4: We can, like I said, refer back to this later.
Speaker 3: Remas well. No, that all of the interactions in this chapter,
Speaker 3: in particular, especially the one that you're showing, which, by
Speaker 3: the way, I love that you're showing this. You're showing
Speaker 3: the actual panels because the amount of people to talk
Speaker 3: about this stuff completely with nothing or they just talk
Speaker 3: about like the anime or something. I think, the degree
Speaker 3: to which it is important to see me or as drawings,
Speaker 3: it cannot be overstated. That is the soul of this
Speaker 3: of what berserk is. Berserk is he remember right this
Speaker 3: man wrote Andrew. Basically everything how how manga works is
Speaker 3: a little bit more complicated, right. There are other people
Speaker 3: in the in the place doing all like that, you know,
Speaker 3: all the shading work, all of like the inking, all
Speaker 3: of that stuff is done handled by different people. But
Speaker 3: the line work, the designs, the the the the uh
Speaker 3: what's it called?
Speaker 2: The uh.
Speaker 3: Movies do it too, The storyboarding, right, like the blocking
Speaker 3: even right figuring out where people are standing. All of
Speaker 3: that stuff. This guy is a fucking master like he
Speaker 3: he has such a beautiful understanding of quote unquote the
Speaker 3: camera right the eye of the viewer, right where things are,
Speaker 3: his master's space. All of that stuff is ridiculous, and
Speaker 3: he really starts to flex it in my opinion, in
Speaker 3: this part of this arc after the time skip right,
Speaker 3: like in this area, this is where he's solidifying designs.
Speaker 3: This is where he's figuring out how he wants to
Speaker 3: make things look in the future. Uh. This arc is
Speaker 3: like the the the It's where the the cement sets.
Speaker 3: You know. I love Griffith's design. First of all, the
Speaker 3: hawk is such a cool idea, right, him being this
Speaker 3: blonde or so not even he's not even blonde. His
Speaker 3: hair is white. Right, It's more than that, he like
Speaker 3: he looks like an elf for Christ's sake, right, he
Speaker 3: he doesn't even look like a person. And all of
Speaker 3: his boys, uh, you know, like almost like revere him
Speaker 3: the way that they talk about not just Griffith, but
Speaker 3: also Guts. At this point, right, you know, after when
Speaker 3: when Cosco is sort of like a dressing him down,
Speaker 3: you can see that Guts has established himself within the
Speaker 3: band of the Hawk, right. He he he has now become,
Speaker 3: you know, the captain of the Raiders, right, he has
Speaker 3: a bunch of guys under his command, and he still
Speaker 3: does reckless things, but he but he like his guys
Speaker 3: don't even care. They think he's awesome, right, they like,
Speaker 3: I think it's cool that he does one v ones. Right,
Speaker 3: They're like, that's sick. We would will go after you anyway, right.
Speaker 3: But Casco has problems with that, right, And and the
Speaker 3: friction is there, and I love that, right, the the
Speaker 3: the her feeling that he's sort of replacing her, all
Speaker 3: of the stuff, like all of the fact that all
Speaker 3: of these characters are clearly people who are right, if
Speaker 3: you're a mercenary in a band of guys, right, you've
Speaker 3: you've probably had a pretty interesting or hard life or both. Right,
Speaker 3: something has brought you to this place that's not like normal. Right.
Speaker 3: A lot of these guys are outcasts. They don't have
Speaker 3: anybody to go back to or any place to go
Speaker 3: back to. So this is their place, right. So that
Speaker 3: that conflict between people who don't know where else to
Speaker 3: go and feel like their place is being sort of usurped.
Speaker 3: That's that's that's that that provides her interesting character character work, right,
Speaker 3: And thankfully, Mirror understands understatement. He understands not making everything
Speaker 3: be necessarily be said. He understands allowing characters to not
Speaker 3: like Guts doesn't necessarily say everything he's feeling, right, He
Speaker 3: most of the time he's conveying all of the things
Speaker 3: that this guy thinks through looks. You know, so you
Speaker 3: have to be able to do that well, and you
Speaker 3: see a lot of that coming out here. I love
Speaker 3: this stuff. I love I love these chapters in particular. Uh,
Speaker 3: it's sort of a coming out for the character. Right,
Speaker 3: you've seen because again, right, chronologically we're a little bit
Speaker 3: far and at this point you've seen a lot be
Speaker 3: overcome from guns, right, Like he seems sort of like
Speaker 3: he's more maturing more as a person as a man. Right.
Speaker 3: She gets upset with him cuscom Right, She gets upset
Speaker 3: with him about like saying like you don't you don't
Speaker 3: care about your comrades, you don't care about anybody else, Right,
Speaker 3: you just go in and he's like, no, like that's
Speaker 3: he that's what he takes issue with. Rights, we're saying
Speaker 3: that to him.
Speaker 4: Well, and we get an interesting contrast in this next scene, right,
Speaker 4: Guts and Griffith have their conversation, and then we see
Speaker 4: the difference in how the two of them are basically
Speaker 4: celebrating this victory.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So again we see this this very good you know
Speaker 4: architectural drawing. EUA plays a lot with perspective. We noticed
Speaker 4: this earlier in the Black Swordsman arc. But again, right,
Speaker 4: the the other mercenary captains are here. You know, Griffith
Speaker 4: is being knighted, right, he is sort of getting this title,
Speaker 4: and we see the people, you know, his warriors, you know, reacting.
Speaker 4: The question again is where's Guts.
Speaker 3: Gus is just working out right. They strapped some kind
Speaker 3: of crude you know, wooden weights to his sword, and
Speaker 3: he's outside, just completely uninterested in the kind of status,
Speaker 3: the desire for glory that we see driving grivit. So again,
Speaker 3: these two are foils for each other, you know, of
Speaker 3: them are the thrust of the drama of this piece.
Speaker 3: They again, it is it is their relationship that defines
Speaker 3: the state of the world. Literally, everything about what happens.
Speaker 3: These decisions, these choices, these ambitions, these resentments, everything that
Speaker 3: takes place between these two characters defines everything that happens
Speaker 3: it's it's beautiful the subtlety of all of it as well,
Speaker 3: Like especially okay, okay, I know we're trying to not
Speaker 3: do spoilers, but we have to talk about the way
Speaker 3: that these two actually come together and nature of how
Speaker 3: that defines their relationship. Right, there's a lot like a
Speaker 3: lot of people talk about Berserk, and the way that
Speaker 3: they talk about Griffith and Guts is like, you know,
Speaker 3: they have this very crude sort of like it's gay
Speaker 3: and it's like listen, dude, just shut the fuck up, right,
Speaker 3: like get out of here, Like you can do that
Speaker 3: if you want, but that's that's not what's happening here. Right,
Speaker 3: Griffith is a Griffith is the kind of person that
Speaker 3: has a single desire, right, He has a single goal.
Speaker 3: He has a as he calls it, a dream. He
Speaker 3: wants something from the world for whatever reason, which you
Speaker 3: you know, do see and find out what what why.
Speaker 3: Griffith you know, pursues what he pursues in the way
Speaker 3: that he pursues it. Right. But in initially when they
Speaker 3: first meet, Griffith has seen Guts in action in combat, right,
Speaker 3: and this kid is already like he is clearly like
Speaker 3: this is like meeting Guts would be like meeting a
Speaker 3: very scary street dog, right, he is hard, like meeting
Speaker 3: a kid, Like could you imagine meeting a child like them?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean? It's like it's scary, Like
Speaker 3: that's like that it's scary. And it's also it's not
Speaker 3: scary because it's not like the necessarily this kid's gonna
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. But it's there's a sense
Speaker 3: of like, especially if you're your own kids, right, I don't,
Speaker 3: but everyone who does, right, Any you look at a child, right,
Speaker 3: any any child that's like hard and that has hard
Speaker 3: eyes and that looks at you the way that Guts
Speaker 3: looks at people when he's a child, Right, it's like,
Speaker 3: what the fuck happened to this kid? Right? There's something
Speaker 3: clearly here, But whatever it is, it fuels this violence, right.
Speaker 3: And the reason for that is myriad, But to put it,
Speaker 3: to put it simply, it's violence is the only thing
Speaker 3: that is ever Actually, violence is the only friend that
Speaker 3: Guts has, right. His sword is his only friend. It's
Speaker 3: it's the only thing he can really trust. It's the
Speaker 3: only thing that he knows won't betray him. It's the
Speaker 3: only thing that he knows he can depend on. Right
Speaker 3: is the blade. That's why he's so good with it.
Speaker 3: That's why even here right while Griffith is being knighted,
Speaker 3: he's honing his ability to use it. Right, that's all
Speaker 3: he that's his only real instrument in this world to
Speaker 3: act upon it, to stop it from acting upon him, right,
Speaker 3: which has very much happened to him. So when he
Speaker 3: meets Griffith, who has seen him fight, sees him like
Speaker 3: again cut through some dude's armer with the fucking sword,
Speaker 3: which is insane, Right, Griffith season fight and Griffith understands
Speaker 3: the value of this, being able to bring violence to
Speaker 3: bear like that season is a tool, right, goes I
Speaker 3: could use that. They meet because Griffith, Griffith's men jump him,
Speaker 3: He kills a couple of them. The fight starts to
Speaker 3: go bad. Costco goes over to try to stop him,
Speaker 3: Guts almost kills Cosca. Griffith saves her and shows one
Speaker 3: why he is the guy that he is. He is
Speaker 3: an expert swordsman. Like as much as we are going
Speaker 3: to talk about Griffith's faults right right now, in these panels,
Speaker 3: you were just you were just contrasting the you know
Speaker 3: the focuses, right, Griffith is here to get knighted. He is.
Speaker 3: He wants the accolades because of where they because of
Speaker 3: where they will take him in his mind, right, but
Speaker 3: he earned them with like Griffith isn't just snaking his
Speaker 3: way through, right, he is actually real. When he fights Gots,
Speaker 3: he beats him. And that's the proposition. If I beat
Speaker 3: you in this sword fight, I will own you. You
Speaker 3: will be mine. It's literally the language that he describes
Speaker 3: that he uses. Right, you will be mine. And he
Speaker 3: loses the fight, right, got is the fight? So that
Speaker 3: that relationship right, because not only does he lose the fight,
Speaker 3: then he's then he is introduced into an embraced by
Speaker 3: this band of warriors. Right. And again, as I said
Speaker 3: at the beginning, it's manner bund right. This is the
Speaker 3: This is the desire of all young mentor would agree,
Speaker 3: is to be embraced by a group of their peers. Right.
Speaker 3: You want the others to respect you and to value you. Right.
Speaker 3: I think this is human universal right. And he never
Speaker 3: experienced this up until this point. The only way that
Speaker 3: he experienced any form of value was you know, it
Speaker 3: was all backhanded. It all came with abuse, right, So
Speaker 3: finally he meets these people who treat him well for
Speaker 3: what he can do, and even after hurting him, embrace him. Right,
Speaker 3: only then does he learn sort of like to become
Speaker 3: dedicated to others. Right. And now at this point, even
Speaker 3: in this panel, right, the juxtaposition of them so true, right,
Speaker 3: Griffith or Guts, he never stops honing himself. Griffith is
Speaker 3: now concerned with pageantry, knighthood, social the social dynamic if
Speaker 3: you if you, if you can you scroll back up
Speaker 3: for a sec like, uh, or I think yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: So so while he's been knighted, right, while that's happening
Speaker 3: the whole time, other nobles who were there before him, right,
Speaker 3: guys who are already knights, these guys are all talking shit, right,
Speaker 3: They're all like, I can't believe this. Right, So this
Speaker 3: is now the domain that Griffith has to concern himself with.
Speaker 3: These are the sparrings that he has to go through.
Speaker 3: These are the knife fights that he has to deal with,
Speaker 3: whereas Guts remains sort of the the earth. Right, He's like,
Speaker 3: it's like one goes to the sky, the other one
Speaker 3: goes to the earth. Right, They are. They are truly
Speaker 3: like a Yin and Yang situation, the two of them, well.
Speaker 4: And you get that visually, right, the visual contrast between
Speaker 4: you know, Guts training he's sweaty and gross, and then
Speaker 4: Griffith right in his finery, Guts is he is wielding
Speaker 4: his sword. Griffith is kissing one Yes, assuming his new
Speaker 4: role as a knight. Yes, And that is very deliberate
Speaker 4: mirror Drew.
Speaker 3: He doesn't Guts isn't ugly. I wouldn't call him ugly, right,
Speaker 3: there's a there's a reason that so many Zoomers, you know,
Speaker 3: want to be this character, right, But it's the reason
Speaker 3: that so many people in general have wanted to be
Speaker 3: this character of Ron Zoomers. But like you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, he's like a gym icon. Now, like guys,
Speaker 3: guys go to the gym and they get the brand
Speaker 3: of sacrifice tattooed on them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's funny how that's like how become part
Speaker 3: of the culture, right, enduring pain. But it's not only
Speaker 3: in that, right, It's it's the character. It's not that
Speaker 3: he's ugly, it's that he's a he's they're juxtapost right,
Speaker 3: his hair is he's dark. His skin even is is
Speaker 3: like like he looks more canned always than Griffith. Right,
Speaker 3: He's he's rougher. He looks like a person who's has
Speaker 3: slept outside many, many, many times. And Griffith doesn't. Griffith
Speaker 3: looks like a princess in from a castle, right, but
Speaker 3: he is rough. That's the weird part about Griffith. And
Speaker 3: that's the part that always like again, just like just
Speaker 3: like Guts' strength is acknowledged in universe to sort of
Speaker 3: be monstrous, It's like, what the fuck is that Griffith
Speaker 3: is also considered like it's like people are like it's
Speaker 3: like he's not even real, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: He seems like unreal. He's like a he's like a
Speaker 3: character out of myst It's like a like an Arthurian
Speaker 3: legend or something. Right. Uh. And to that point, something
Speaker 3: that I also want to bring up. Sorry, go ahead,
Speaker 3: go ahead, because I won't forget no, no, not at all.
Speaker 4: But that's something we will see reference to a multitude
Speaker 4: of times. Right, Griffith is is pretty almost like a girl,
Speaker 4: and you know not to say that, you know, Guts
Speaker 4: is deliberately hideous, like there are hideous, like grotesque and
Speaker 4: hideous people in this we say that in the Black
Speaker 4: Swordsman arc. But he's rough, he has been effectively scarred
Speaker 4: by war, and he's covered in marks, and he doesn't
Speaker 4: take care of himself in nearly the same way Griffith doesn't.
Speaker 3: There's that at all.
Speaker 4: Doesn't care exactly in the same way that he doesn't
Speaker 4: care about uh like, doesn't care about status at all.
Speaker 4: He literally doesn't care about anything except getting better at
Speaker 4: swinging the sword. That's like his whole the whole focus
Speaker 4: of his life.
Speaker 3: Is like, I'm going to do that. And part of
Speaker 3: that is because he feels that debt, right he feels
Speaker 3: the debt to Griffith and the band for what they've
Speaker 3: given him, which is like a place, a family, a home,
Speaker 3: people to care about, people that care about me, people
Speaker 3: to depend on me, closeness with others, right, that that
Speaker 3: that desire of his because it's not that like. Some
Speaker 3: of the most heartbreaking panels in Berserk are the stuff
Speaker 3: of when he's a kid, like the one where he
Speaker 3: falls asleep while holding the fucking sword. It's like that
Speaker 3: is so painful, Like this kid desires closeness so much,
Speaker 3: so much, right, and he's not getting it from anybody
Speaker 3: around him, because nobody is there for him for that,
Speaker 3: for that purpose that he will choose cold and sharp steel, right, anything, Right,
Speaker 3: it's the only thing that's that's here for me. Right.
Speaker 3: To go from that to being somebody who has friendships,
Speaker 3: has close bonds, that is a tremendous change, right, Like
Speaker 3: this is like it's like any I don't know anybody
Speaker 3: who has ever taken in an animal, not necessarily a
Speaker 3: heavily abused one, but you too, right, those people too, right.
Speaker 3: They The amount of time and efforts and care that
Speaker 3: it takes to open that kind of pain up right
Speaker 3: is really really difficult. But when you do, it's immensely,
Speaker 3: immensely gratifying and satisfying to sort of like see this
Speaker 3: animal learn to trust again. Right, Guts is a similar
Speaker 3: creature he was. He's like a very abused and straight dog, right,
Speaker 3: And these people gave him a home, these people gave
Speaker 3: him something, so he his way of giving back is
Speaker 3: I don't have anything but my ability to use this weapon.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to become unbelievably proficient with it. I
Speaker 3: will push myself as beyond what's possible. And meanwhile, this
Speaker 3: is what Griffith is concerned with. Griffith's eyes are always
Speaker 3: on the horizon. Griffith is always looking to the future.
Speaker 3: Griffith is holding what he himself is called the egg
Speaker 3: of the King already, right, we know what this thing is,
Speaker 3: we do, yeah.
Speaker 4: And it's important to remember that, you know, we will
Speaker 4: we will learn more about Griffith as is sort of
Speaker 4: you know, foreshadowed at the start of uh, you know
Speaker 4: this at the end of excuse me, this segment we're
Speaker 4: going through. So next chapter, right, it opens on this
Speaker 4: shot of Griffith with the bailot around his neck. Of course,
Speaker 4: as people who have read the Black Swordsman arc, we
Speaker 4: understand the significance of that, right, there's some heavily foreshadowing
Speaker 4: going on. What happens next is that, you know, Griffith
Speaker 4: and his company are on a hill overlooking a siege
Speaker 4: and they're talking about Zod, this soldier, you know that,
Speaker 4: this sort of mythical man. And you know, as the
Speaker 4: action kind of goes on, we see this keep where
Speaker 4: the door has been busted in and there are other
Speaker 4: mercenaries standing around and they're saying, we've sent fifty men
Speaker 4: in None of them have come back out, and again, right,
Speaker 4: the the gore is is significant in this, so as
Speaker 4: we go through.
Speaker 3: It, he hasn't just guts. Guts himself notes this. Then
Speaker 3: when he goes in, man, it's not like this is
Speaker 3: not like, oh, a bunch of guys got killed with
Speaker 3: weapons in here, This is like, what the fuck? These
Speaker 3: people got pulped like they're like destroyed. They're not just killed,
Speaker 3: They're like, what is happened? It's like they got killed
Speaker 3: by machinery or something, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 3: like coming into an industrial accident. And we see the
Speaker 3: exact same dynamic right now as we've we've seen earlier.
Speaker 3: Guts wants to go in, right despite the fact that
Speaker 3: these you know, fifty men have been killed, and we
Speaker 3: see right one of the survivors stumbling out, and it
Speaker 3: again it's graphic, completely completely hacked. Is one of his
Speaker 3: arms in half of his side is missing, right, You
Speaker 3: see his I was gonna say guts, but that's a
Speaker 3: stupid pun in this context. You see his intestines, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: one hundred percent, And the last time he says he them,
Speaker 3: he truly guts from right there, he guts across the room.
Speaker 3: So true, so true.
Speaker 4: But of course right guts, being our hero, he goes in.
Speaker 4: Right again, this is we've seen this established so yet
Speaker 4: again as you said, right, these guys are not killed
Speaker 4: like the other bodies we see, you know, stabbed with
Speaker 4: with spears or arrows. They are completely and totally mangled. Right,
Speaker 4: and again we see this dramatic perspective that Mura loves
Speaker 4: to use.
Speaker 3: Handful shot man.
Speaker 4: Oh great, and look like I'm a sucker for all
Speaker 4: the medieval architecture, which is is great in this just
Speaker 4: a you know, another example again kind of the focus
Speaker 4: on the horror. There is a lot of horror in Berserk.
Speaker 4: This gets covered.
Speaker 3: I would say it's undoubtedly a horror manga at least
Speaker 3: as a side genre. Like that is that is that
Speaker 3: he is definitely taking from that, and I mean like
Speaker 3: old horror like like obviously it's it's it's graphic, but
Speaker 3: he's more working in a like this feels like like Dracula,
Speaker 3: Like this feels like Franken, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: This doesn't feel like, yes, it's graphic violence, but it's
Speaker 3: also like there's a majesty. There's a good use of
Speaker 3: shadow and darkness. There's there's a understanding of of of
Speaker 3: like uh of of how to build into you know,
Speaker 3: a visual, visually terrifying thing. Right. That's that's that's his style.
Speaker 3: He's the best at this. Another thing, you know, I
Speaker 3: did want to say earlier, Right, this is something that
Speaker 3: I think is is also a huge part of why
Speaker 3: Berserk is so popular, uh in the West, is because
Speaker 3: it is invariably Western in many ways. Obviously it's a manga,
Speaker 3: but like the entire thing takes takes place in sudo Europe.
Speaker 3: All the designs are European designs, right, It's it's uh,
Speaker 3: you know, people love dark Souls, right, and Dark Souls
Speaker 3: has a very similar aesthetic language that Berserk does obviously, right,
Speaker 3: it's very uh visually inspired by it, right, even even
Speaker 3: the enemies things like that. Right. I love that Miura
Speaker 3: made that choice to to and it's so lovingly represented
Speaker 3: as well. Like you can tell that he enjoys drawing
Speaker 3: the armor, drawing the the buildings, drawing the spears, drawing
Speaker 3: the formations, the the you know, the sweeping fields, the
Speaker 3: green right that that those those aspects of sort of
Speaker 3: a pre industrial uh Europe, right, you know, almost like
Speaker 3: like a ghibli type of thing. Right, I think that
Speaker 3: that sort of same uh uh itch is sort of
Speaker 3: being scratched a little bit. Except this is includes like
Speaker 3: hyper violence and stuff and and horror, right especially.
Speaker 4: And obviously there's a lot pulling from Lovecraft, this idea
Speaker 4: of you know, a cosmic horror that we got into,
Speaker 4: you know, speaking about the God Hand earlier in the
Speaker 4: last episode, right, the idea of incomprehensible powers past your
Speaker 4: understanding that are malicious, right and want to kill you?
Speaker 3: Yes, and yes forty almost forty k like right, the
Speaker 3: God Hand and sort of the way that this is
Speaker 3: operating is almost like it's almost like that. It's a
Speaker 3: like it's, oh yeah, there's things beyond the veil and
Speaker 3: they are malevolent, right, oh yeah, this is a world
Speaker 3: where hell is very real. And of course, right, he
Speaker 3: rounds the corner and sees God. Yes again lovingly rendered
Speaker 3: just the absolute horror of this ostensible man sick, right,
Speaker 3: you see him just completely jacked to. I love that
Speaker 3: he's naked too. I love that, like every aspect of
Speaker 3: this is so like he is He is knan you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. He is not like this is
Speaker 3: not a thing like the other people that you have
Speaker 3: been seeing up to this point. Never mind the fact
Speaker 3: that he's an apostle. Beyond that, right, this is PRIMORTI.
Speaker 3: This is a primordial Like this dude doesn't he's not
Speaker 3: bothering wearing armor. He's he's not bothering with any of that.
Speaker 3: Look at that, Look at his fingers in that guy's head, right,
Speaker 3: like beyond even the apostle aspect, though yes, the fingers
Speaker 3: in the head is apossibly right, it's just the fact that,
Speaker 3: like this is a zod immediately shows like almost like
Speaker 3: the chronmagnu and brow sing right like he he establishes
Speaker 3: him as like an almost primeval man immediately all the
Speaker 3: hit the subtle like everything. His whole body's cross hatched, right,
Speaker 3: and that gives the impression that he's covered in hair.
Speaker 3: But it's like very fine, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: You know, he feels bestial everything. With such an excellent
Speaker 3: introduction of this character, I love him.
Speaker 4: And straight away it's just charges him right, just full
Speaker 4: steam ahead.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: He throws the bodies of these two of his compatriots
Speaker 4: at him, of course, which is you know, just avage.
Speaker 4: And you know, the two of them start to have
Speaker 4: a fight again, we see Guts slammed into a pillar.
Speaker 4: Right again, a recurring motif in these the.
Speaker 3: Overwhelming strength immediately immediately established. Right, and again thing I
Speaker 3: was going to I was going to mention, Okay, something
Speaker 3: that I think is very interesting the you know on
Speaker 3: the way in right, you were showing, you know, on
Speaker 3: the way in that shot of the of the of
Speaker 3: the of the hallway, of all the mangled bodies. The
Speaker 3: only person up to this point that we've seen who
Speaker 3: is able to make this human bodies turn into this
Speaker 3: kind of thing is Guts, Right, his fights, That's what
Speaker 3: people look like after the fights. Right, So it kind
Speaker 3: of subtenly establishes that, like you are now walking into
Speaker 3: a place in which the order of battle is now
Speaker 3: to your level, right, you are that he can do
Speaker 3: what you can do, right, And he even kind of
Speaker 3: his his face suddenly mirrors go Guts is right. They
Speaker 3: have very similar facial physiognomy. It's just that Zons is
Speaker 3: like monsterified, right, it's like exaggerated. But they have that
Speaker 3: same sort of brow that even their hair is similar, right,
Speaker 3: same facial sort of shape and stuff. I think Zod
Speaker 3: is clearly led to me. He's always been a mirror
Speaker 3: of of Guts. Right, He's like, what if what if
Speaker 3: Guts was a monster? He would be Zod?
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, and I mean to that to that point, right,
Speaker 4: we see very quickly that that Zod recognizes there's something
Speaker 4: different about Guts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the tactical tactical shade on his penis you never
Speaker 3: see has just a massive hok. Yeah, it's like he's
Speaker 3: but he's hiding it though he's a He's a grower,
Speaker 3: not a shower.
Speaker 4: And again you see the kind of characterization by weapons,
Speaker 4: which is something constantly done in this Sod basically just
Speaker 4: has a machety rough giant blade just sign for hacking
Speaker 4: people apart.
Speaker 3: And it goes around shields. It's it's pure offense because
Speaker 3: you're a giant dude. Again, as we see from this
Speaker 3: again we'll ring the bell. You hear me say, perspective, uh,
Speaker 3: the forced perspective of this. Right, this guy is farther
Speaker 3: away and yet towering over him, you know, with this
Speaker 3: this pile of the whole line, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: he's the whole room mirror is a master of this.
Speaker 3: And you see strike well boy right recognizes this isn't
Speaker 3: just a normal guy and he goes in. It's just like,
Speaker 3: look at the violence, the the implication of speed, the weight, everything,
Speaker 3: how unprepared Guts is even though he's swinging.
Speaker 4: And you see that in the difference in the lines right,
Speaker 4: the line work where Guts is largely stationary. He's still
Speaker 4: obviously moving his sword. But compare the line weight on
Speaker 4: his sword twas in the blade versus like all of
Speaker 4: just bearing down on him.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, pure violence. There is only like Zod reminds
Speaker 3: me any any any any Baki enjoyers out there, you know, uh,
Speaker 3: big ups to you. He reminds me of Hanma Yujito
Speaker 3: from from Baki. That that that that ogre bestial nature. Right,
Speaker 3: that speed, that that that overwhelming power of every movement,
Speaker 3: every action. He's there's no wasted nothing, he just goes
Speaker 3: for it. I love the shining eyes too, right. He
Speaker 3: doesn't even bother with the face in that panel, but
Speaker 3: he gives you the eyes right, such such such perfect
Speaker 3: little little choices, I I cannot like. I will gush
Speaker 3: over literally everything in the Monga love. I love reserve it,
Speaker 3: so so well done. I also don't want to read this.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to read this because this is this
Speaker 3: is what it starts like. This, This this part of
Speaker 3: the arc. This is what it starts with. Right, And
Speaker 3: we were just talking about love crafting powers, right and
Speaker 3: Zod in this world is the destiny of mankind controlled
Speaker 3: by some transcendental entity or law? Is it like the
Speaker 3: hand of God hovering above? At least it is true
Speaker 3: that man has no control even over his own will.
Speaker 3: Man takes up the sword in order to shield the
Speaker 3: small wound in his heart, sustained in a far off
Speaker 3: time beyond remembrance. Man wields that sword so that he
Speaker 3: may die smiling in some far off time beyond perception. Right,
Speaker 3: the I love the the the understanding of the blade
Speaker 3: as the will of how sort of one's willingness to
Speaker 3: do battle, to fight, to potentially die, to throw themselves
Speaker 3: into danger. Right is where they will find who they are. Right,
Speaker 3: Guts live by this creed. He lives by this this logic,
Speaker 3: and you find in this fight, so does mister Zod. Yes.
Speaker 4: And that's what's what's interesting about this.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to show this segment of it, not
Speaker 4: because it's there's anything wrong with it. It's great, But
Speaker 4: the fight scene as it progresses. Guts is holding his
Speaker 4: own and he's not being hacked to pieces, and Zod
Speaker 4: noticed this. This he says, you know, no man has
Speaker 4: been able to halt my sword for fifty years. So
Speaker 4: the two of them get pushed apart, and Zod, who
Speaker 4: is despite being this hulking beast, is clearly very intelligent
Speaker 4: because he says, oh, he betting this all. He calls
Speaker 4: him specifically, and I love this. In Japanese subaroshi, he
Speaker 4: calls him splendid, superb. That's how he refers to Guts.
Speaker 3: I love that. He's like, Wow, this guy fucking rules.
Speaker 3: He hasn't died in four slashes.
Speaker 4: Amazing well, and to that point, right as they're push
Speaker 4: a part by kind of the tides to the fight,
Speaker 4: he Zod looks at him and says, I know what
Speaker 4: you're gonna do. You're betting this soul on one last strike.
Speaker 4: That's all you've got left. And what's in an interesting moment,
Speaker 4: because this is very prototypically Guts, right, he doesn't. He
Speaker 4: makes a tactical move. He goes for his sword. He
Speaker 4: breaks God's sword and cuts into his flesh. Right goes
Speaker 4: through his forearms and we see several things. One, Zod
Speaker 4: is not human at all because as gut sword is
Speaker 4: through his forearms and into his chest, he pulls it out.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: It kind of a classic movie shot, right, And we
Speaker 4: see this, this sort of menace build and this has
Speaker 4: a lot of parallels to the to the fight with
Speaker 4: the with the Snake barn Right. We're initially somewhat human ish,
Speaker 4: but all of a sudden we realize there's a whole
Speaker 4: lot more to Zod than we would have initially thought.
Speaker 3: We love this because this is the first time that
Speaker 3: Guts sees this, and the first time that Guts is
Speaker 3: confronted with the truth of his world.
Speaker 4: Yes, because before this and all the other battles, which
Speaker 4: have been very well done, it's all been human. It's
Speaker 4: guys with swords, guys with spears, cannons at least some,
Speaker 4: And all of a sudden we see this reveal of
Speaker 4: something that is not human at all.
Speaker 3: Yes, and up until this point, right, this guy, we
Speaker 3: were just talking about it. This guy has been been
Speaker 3: able to take solace right in the fact his world
Speaker 3: has been ended before you understand, this is a child
Speaker 3: who has gone through horrible, horrible experiences, and he fought
Speaker 3: for his humanity back with the blade, and now he's
Speaker 3: being confronted with the thing that it seems that the
Speaker 3: blades sim does not have an answer for. And this
Speaker 3: is like, this is world shattering, right, how do you
Speaker 3: deal with this? Okay, now there's a monster in front
Speaker 3: of me, right what Oh and by the way, he's
Speaker 3: like kind of pissed off because I just got him
Speaker 3: really bad.
Speaker 4: Well, he's a little bad about it. And again Miura
Speaker 4: playing with perspective. Right, look at how tiny guts massive
Speaker 4: sword is in his hand. Compare that to even a
Speaker 4: few panels ago where we see him in more human form,
Speaker 4: where it's filling up his palm. All of a sudden,
Speaker 4: it's like you're you grabbing a pencil, just.
Speaker 3: Superb, it's nothing. Now he's literally power scaling him visually,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. It's like you have just
Speaker 3: been outclassed. You have been revealed to in fact, have
Speaker 3: been a lightweight after all, and you are in the
Speaker 3: heavyweight section. Now here is what the heavyweights look like.
Speaker 3: Other thing, this is the opening that amazing Mirror is
Speaker 3: so good at. And swapping right is swapping the color right,
Speaker 3: this is white lines on black background. Again, very stylistic
Speaker 3: something we will say often used to highlight certain things.
Speaker 3: But we get again the great perspective of Zod, you know,
Speaker 3: bearing down on our hero. You know, we.
Speaker 4: See him actually scared, right, that's beginning to which is
Speaker 4: very atypical from Guts. We know that he almost has
Speaker 4: no fear, and Zod is saying, dude, this is awesome.
Speaker 4: I haven't been angry and forever. He's just loving it.
Speaker 4: He's just having the best time. He's like, dude, don't
Speaker 4: disappoint me.
Speaker 3: I love that. I love that. He's like, it has
Speaker 3: been so long since I've been able to have fun.
Speaker 3: If you and just lose now, it's gonna suck, dude,
Speaker 3: give me some.
Speaker 4: And so Zod continues the attack. Right, he just batters, Guts,
Speaker 4: no mercy, what's none at all?
Speaker 3: Love that? No mercy. He's like, no, no, no, it's a fight.
Speaker 3: We're fighting, right, it's to fight you, is to honor you.
Speaker 3: And we see Gods sort of very reasonably, sort of
Speaker 3: questioning insanity. Right, He's like, this can't be real, but nonetheless, right,
Speaker 3: Zod is bearing down on him, and we see the
Speaker 3: momentum has changed, like Gots is swinging at him. Right,
Speaker 3: but it bounces off, it just hits his horn and
Speaker 3: he again gets backhanded through another one of these columns,
Speaker 3: and as as Zod bears down on him right saying,
Speaker 3: I won't show you mercy. Is this all you've got? Like,
Speaker 3: I guess it's fine for human backwards, Yeah, and he
Speaker 3: lifts him up and it's gonna tear him limb from
Speaker 3: limb yet again, half again, trying to turn you into
Speaker 3: meet like all those other guys.
Speaker 4: But yet again Griffith shows up right, the band of
Speaker 4: the Hawk is there. They begin, you know, shooting their
Speaker 4: arrows at him. We see again the very feminine, we
Speaker 4: might say, but he's pretty. He's pretty beautiful Griffith obviously
Speaker 4: again contrasted to Guts. It's been bashed through like.
Speaker 3: Number literally prettier than Cosca, yes, like notice, and it's
Speaker 3: not because Cusca's ugly. It's because griff mirror draws him
Speaker 3: as like the prettiest person in the room at all times. Basically,
Speaker 3: he's like an elf. It's a cereal and I love,
Speaker 3: I just love that he's that. Griffith doesn't panic though.
Speaker 3: You can see for the first time basically ever, this
Speaker 3: guy losing his cool to a degree. Right, He's like,
Speaker 3: oh shit, he's sweating, you know what I mean. He's like,
Speaker 3: oh fuck, and then they fire at him. It does nothing,
Speaker 3: and he's like okay, and I love this moment. He
Speaker 3: just like spurgs out super hard. It's like, how dare
Speaker 3: you fuck with my one V one? I write a
Speaker 3: great time and all of you came here and you
Speaker 3: ruined it. This This dude, Zod is just so key though. Dude,
Speaker 3: he's so based well and you see him just laying
Speaker 3: waste nic just he just starts killing everyone, dude, no mercy,
Speaker 3: mashing him up like it's like it's like watching a
Speaker 3: kid destroy by a sand castle. Right, He's just he's
Speaker 3: just he's just wrecking them all. It's like they're all
Speaker 3: hearing your plant like nothing, like they're just they're in cloth.
Speaker 4: Step us again, another just great panel. Yeah, so we
Speaker 4: obviously Guts is throughout the whole thing telling them to
Speaker 4: run away, but Griffith says, no, I'm going in. So
Speaker 4: he goes in, you know, sort of it picks him
Speaker 4: up off the ground and then Zod is bearing down
Speaker 4: on Guts and Griffiths. Yeah, this is what I this
Speaker 4: is what I want to stress about this part of
Speaker 4: the story. This is what makes the Golden Age so good.
Speaker 4: You in the Black Swords and arc You know, Griffith
Speaker 4: is femto, you know, he's femto, right, So you are
Speaker 4: expecting Griffith to be just this manipulative fuck the entire time.
Speaker 3: But he's not. He is perfectly capable of being manipulative.
Speaker 3: He is to some degree, you know, if you want
Speaker 3: to use like libtarded language, right, Like he's some sort
Speaker 3: of like like a psychopath or like a narcissist or something.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't know necessarily he might be a narcissist,
Speaker 3: but because like in you know, psychopathy, it can't feel
Speaker 3: or whatever that I don't know, right, whatever, But and
Speaker 3: he clearly cares about people, right, But does he care
Speaker 3: about them more as objects for his use or not? Honestly, bro,
Speaker 3: this doesn't seem this part right, This doesn't seem like, Wow,
Speaker 3: need to use that guy as my tool so hard. No.
Speaker 3: I feel like a person who doesn't care about another
Speaker 3: person beyond tool will not risk their life for them
Speaker 3: like this, Like in this circumstance, it's one thing to
Speaker 3: be in a battle, it's another thing to have a
Speaker 3: fucking monster from myths, bearn down upon you. Right, that's
Speaker 3: a different level of I'm willing to go in there. Right.
Speaker 3: So Griffith shows himself to actually have been a real
Speaker 3: comrade to these people he cares about. There's a reason
Speaker 3: that they that that everyone follows Griffith the way that
Speaker 3: they do. It's because he was actually that guy. You know.
Speaker 3: He he has his ambitions, but he will also do this,
Speaker 3: you know, And I think that contrast in Griffith's character
Speaker 3: is part of what makes him so interesting.
Speaker 4: Well, again we get the great visual like weapon contrast,
Speaker 4: which is something throughout this entire series. You have the
Speaker 4: giant you know, guts either sword again but still huge,
Speaker 4: and then you know the very elegant kind of yeah
Speaker 4: cavalry saber.
Speaker 3: Exactly beautiful, beautiful and he uses it so effectively.
Speaker 4: And that line, your heart's still beating where are you going?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Just absolutely where are you going? Your heart's still beating? Absolutely?
Speaker 3: That is a that is a that isn't That is
Speaker 3: a great way to chill the bones man. Where are
Speaker 3: you going? Your heart's still beating? Dog talking about you're
Speaker 3: not dead yet? Yeah, Like, I don't think you've understood
Speaker 3: what's happening to you? Love this, love this, This is
Speaker 3: unbelievably good, worth this pana, right.
Speaker 4: Because you see the two of them, these kind of
Speaker 4: like simple mortal.
Speaker 3: This is what I'm talking about when I say like that,
Speaker 3: this is where he really starts like flexing his muscles,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Like Miora shows in this
Speaker 3: arc and in this series of chapters, right, how good
Speaker 3: he really is. And then from then on it's literally
Speaker 3: just gets better and better and better and better until
Speaker 3: he died. Yes exactly, yeah, right, so the fight is
Speaker 3: still going on. We see the both the incredible size
Speaker 3: and power of this man or this apostle. Right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I have portraits of words, but we see you know,
Speaker 3: guts and you know, splitting up trying to take this
Speaker 3: guy down. They are wounding him, right, he is taking
Speaker 3: hits from you know, now Griffith and goth to gust together, Yeah,
Speaker 3: to such a point, yes, that they take his arm off.
Speaker 3: Yeah that that Griffith actually wounds him, cuts his arm off, right,
Speaker 3: So both of them have shown to be actually capable
Speaker 3: of wounding this creature.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and again the fight continues. I'm going to move
Speaker 4: through this.
Speaker 3: We see.
Speaker 4: You know, Griffith is also getting battered by Zod.
Speaker 3: Is what he is for the first time ever put
Speaker 3: in a position of actual danger, danger for real when
Speaker 3: he's knocked over. Yeah, and then the bail it.
Speaker 4: Comes out and Zod, looking over all of a sudden
Speaker 4: realizes what what is going on here?
Speaker 3: Can we just can we just can we just talk
Speaker 3: about the fact that Zod picks up his severed arm
Speaker 3: and begins to be cuts me. Yeah, just sit back on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's so keen though, man, holy fucking loved man, he's
Speaker 3: just villain monologuing while reattaching. I again, he's just having
Speaker 3: the time, is like, you're just talking and he's so
Speaker 3: like I love. Also, one of the sort of subversive
Speaker 3: aspects of him is how eloquent he is, Like he's
Speaker 3: speaking in like an old and and proper almost like
Speaker 3: regal way, right, I love that aspect of He's this
Speaker 3: big brute that will beat the fuck out of you,
Speaker 3: but he's also like hyper eloquent and very very dignified
Speaker 3: when he speaks, and then he sees it and and
Speaker 3: again right we we we see that he is despite
Speaker 3: being this kind of like hulking figure, you know, earlier
Speaker 3: in the in the fight when he correctly We're not correctly,
Speaker 3: but he makes a very good guess at what guts
Speaker 3: next move is. But of course he realizes what this
Speaker 3: is the egg of the King, not just a bayletpecial one. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: he mentions the god man, the god hand rather the
Speaker 3: crimson balet is something that felix him with the Crimson balets. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then he stays laughing.
Speaker 4: Yep, and he's just at this point completely done.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: He physically reaches up, breaks a hole in the roof
Speaker 4: and he tells Guts like, we're done for now. Our
Speaker 4: battle's on hold. I wonder if I'll ever meet you again.
Speaker 3: Next time I see you, it's on site. Yeah.
Speaker 4: But as he goes out, you know, he warns Guts,
Speaker 4: he says, look, if you can be said to be
Speaker 4: a true friend of this man when his ambition collapses,
Speaker 4: then take heat, warning us about the capacity for betray
Speaker 4: And again, what an awesome panel, Yes, absolutely incredible, And
Speaker 4: again for the the the closing to this chapter, the exit,
Speaker 4: Zod sprouts wings and flies away.
Speaker 3: Exactly right, you just you just fucking bounces. He's like, later,
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 4: The panel was so funny too, You're just like, all right,
Speaker 4: just fucking leaves right, while foreshadowing portray you watch out
Speaker 4: your boy. You better watch out for your boy. Also
Speaker 4: I'm coming back. Yeah, so yeah, this is this is
Speaker 4: such a great section. Golden Age is really when this
Speaker 4: series comes into its own, uh in in you know,
Speaker 4: Black Swordsman's very good, but it is a prototype of
Speaker 4: something great. It's worth going back to. But if that's
Speaker 4: all there was of Berserk, people might remember it for
Speaker 4: the art, you know, people might remember it for a
Speaker 4: few other things.
Speaker 3: But I would go farther. I would say that the
Speaker 3: Black Swordsman arc is, especially at this point, like generic.
Speaker 3: The only purpose of reading it is to give yourself
Speaker 3: the context required for this arc and the rest of
Speaker 3: the story. It's not that it's bad, because it's not.
Speaker 3: It's completely serviceable, and especially for its time, it was
Speaker 3: very good, especially art wise, right, but at this point,
Speaker 3: right somebody reading it, I don't think there will be
Speaker 3: some things that might surprise you a little bit, like
Speaker 3: if you hadn't read it right and never had any
Speaker 3: exposure to Berserk. And it's not Again, it's not bad,
Speaker 3: but this arc is what elevates Berserk to something else
Speaker 3: beyond what it was before, because this puts one from
Speaker 3: a visual standpoint. As I've said many times throughout this, right,
Speaker 3: it just just keeps getting better from here. And Berzerk
Speaker 3: is one of the best looking manga ever, right, and
Speaker 3: for many, many, many years it just straight up was
Speaker 3: basically the best looking manga right. Nowadays, there are a
Speaker 3: lot of amazing, amazing, amazing artists out there who do
Speaker 3: incredible work. It's not necessarily that they look better than
Speaker 3: It's not a competition per se, but it's like hyper
Speaker 3: high quality art is not something that is like impossible
Speaker 3: to find right outside of this right in the same
Speaker 3: way that it sort of was for its time, and
Speaker 3: it has inspired so much stuff over the years with
Speaker 3: its you know, the way that it handled it's setting,
Speaker 3: its character designs and costume designs, armor designs, weapon designs,
Speaker 3: even you know, buildings, just the monsters everything, right, people
Speaker 3: have been sort of whether you know, the outright copying
Speaker 3: or being so clearly inspired by it for so long.
Speaker 3: Like I don't think that there's I think there's a
Speaker 3: good reason that like for example, a cloud Strife from
Speaker 3: Final Fantasy seven has a giant fucking sword. I think
Speaker 3: there's a good you know what I mean, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of characters out there that they are what they
Speaker 3: are because of the because of the influence of this
Speaker 3: and Black Swordsman. Yeah, I think it establishes like the
Speaker 3: designs and a lot of those things, but it doesn't
Speaker 3: have that same soul and heart that comes in everything
Speaker 3: basically after this up to up to me year's death.
Speaker 3: And just to be clear also, I have not read
Speaker 3: a single chapter of Berserk since Mira died because it's
Speaker 3: I don't it's not. It's not. Even if you're working
Speaker 3: from his his notes and and you're his very good friend.
Speaker 3: He told you the story and all of that stuff.
Speaker 3: That's cool. What you're drawing is not what he necessarily
Speaker 3: would have drawn. It's not ever going to look the
Speaker 3: way he would it would have came out of his mind.
Speaker 3: To me, it's like a it's like a fan finishing
Speaker 3: the thing, even though they are also a big mangca.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't. It doesn't hit the same. It feels
Speaker 3: wrong to read personally. For me, personally, it doesn't. It
Speaker 3: does like it just doesn't feel It almost feels like filler,
Speaker 3: except I know that it's supposed to be. It's like
Speaker 3: or or like like you know how the Game of
Speaker 3: Thrones show not in the same like it's ship now way,
Speaker 3: but like you understand that after a certain point in
Speaker 3: the Game of Thrones show that they don't have the
Speaker 3: books to really take from, so they're working from like
Speaker 3: a skeleton. Right, it's the same kind of feeling. So
Speaker 3: I haven't seen past that. I haven't looked past that.
Speaker 3: But like up to the point, literally Mirror was drawing
Speaker 3: some of the best stuff he's ever drawn just before
Speaker 3: he died. So yeah, the series never gets worse looking
Speaker 3: it's and it starts here. It starts here. This is
Speaker 3: where it really pops off. And even in this chapter, right,
Speaker 3: this odd chapter, like some of these odd panels as
Speaker 3: you saw, are just incredible, right and now narratively, right,
Speaker 3: this moment is really important for many many reasons. Right one,
Speaker 3: it establishes the whole like you know, bail it the king.
Speaker 3: Holy shit, like they knew even beforehand, right, like this
Speaker 3: was like it's almost like this kid was destined to
Speaker 3: do this, right, Like what is going on exactly in
Speaker 3: this story? Like what what? What is Griffith? Right? Who
Speaker 3: you know was he chosen for this right, Like, how
Speaker 3: how does this work? But uh, yeah that that I
Speaker 3: love that fight. I love that fight really really important
Speaker 3: for the character also to encounter like a wall that
Speaker 3: he can't surmount, right, to feel the true nature of
Speaker 3: the world, the fact that there are supernatural problems, and like,
Speaker 3: how are you going to solve that? Bro? Like, what's
Speaker 3: your answer going to be to that? And to know
Speaker 3: because we read the Black Sportsman arc right to know
Speaker 3: that his answer was I'm just going to get a
Speaker 3: bigger sword and kill them harder. Is like that what
Speaker 3: a what a great solution to that problem? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 3: and honestly, man like.
Speaker 4: This we might have different feelings about the continuation after
Speaker 4: his death because I agree with you on the front
Speaker 4: of the art, But as far as finishing the story,
Speaker 4: I am glad for it to be eventually finished one day,
Speaker 4: and I have at least some level of confidence in
Speaker 4: the You know, the guy who funny enough was the
Speaker 4: basis for the character of Griffith, right, you know, heading
Speaker 4: it up. Well, see, there's not really enough of it
Speaker 4: yet to say confidently one way or the other.
Speaker 3: At least no, no, it's not even it's it's it's
Speaker 3: not even any real disrespect to him or anything like that.
Speaker 3: It just feels like it like it's just like even
Speaker 3: looking at the characters, everything feels wrong. Like while I'm
Speaker 3: look it feels like Uncanny Valley. Yeah, yeah, but it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's almost but not perfectly right exactly exactly. And I
Speaker 3: am I agree with you there about the story because
Speaker 3: I do want to know what Mirror's intention was and
Speaker 3: where he intended for the story to go, and and
Speaker 3: and and what was going to happen. I do I
Speaker 3: I I am glad that that sort of even though
Speaker 3: he sadly did not get to finish it, it will
Speaker 3: be finished, you know, and that that work will get finished, right.
Speaker 3: Like it's almost like if the Sistine Chapel had never
Speaker 3: been finished, right type saying, It's like you would hope
Speaker 3: that somebody a friend would want to finish it for
Speaker 3: the person who had been doing you know, for Michelangelo, right,
Speaker 3: that that kind of thing. So yeah, I'm with you
Speaker 3: on that, but it's it's like I just haven't done.
Speaker 3: So there's almost a part of me that like almost
Speaker 3: wants it to be done and then I'll go and
Speaker 3: just just do it right and just read all of it. Yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 3: because it might be another thirty years at this pace. Seriously, man,
Speaker 3: he was on that boat for so goddamn long, bro,
Speaker 3: Holy shit, I was concurrent before the boat, so.
Speaker 4: Cheese man, Yeah, I was. I definitely caught up on
Speaker 4: the boat, which again doesn't really narrow it down at all. Right,
Speaker 4: that's like a decade.
Speaker 3: You if you were on the boat, you were on
Speaker 3: the boat, and you have you were a comrade of mine, Okay,
Speaker 3: because that's weird. It doesn't matter when you got on
Speaker 3: the boat. You were there and that boat situation was
Speaker 3: fucking crazy, dude, that is insane.
Speaker 4: Well, dude, we'll have to be back because this was
Speaker 4: a ton of fun. There's so much more to cover. Uh, well,
Speaker 4: we'll definitely do this again. Is there anywhere people can
Speaker 4: find you, man, or anything you want to promote?
Speaker 3: I got BAEd. I've been banned from Twitter so many times.
Speaker 3: I'm probably coming back, but you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 3: I also don't like care about like that. You know
Speaker 3: what I mean, don't? Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So it's no big deal. Doing it for the love
Speaker 3: of the game. Absolutely absolutely for me. It's about the things, right,
Speaker 3: I think the things have great and powerful significance, right,
Speaker 3: I think you know, uh, Berserk is like primordials. It's
Speaker 3: like it's a you know, it's it's it's talking to
Speaker 3: something inside so many of us. And you know, the
Speaker 3: the symbol and the the symbol of Guts as the sufferer,
Speaker 3: right is a powerful one in our time and we
Speaker 3: are a time that is uh you know, it's it's hungry,
Speaker 3: it's it's starving for for meaning and myth and symbol right,
Speaker 3: ones that that that have real power. Because so much feels,
Speaker 3: especially now right with the whole like fucking ai slop bullshit, right,
Speaker 3: everything so much feels like like ephemeral, like smoke. Right,
Speaker 3: So when you find something that feels like it's rooted,
Speaker 3: deeply rooted, uh, it, you know, it's it's worth holding onto,
Speaker 3: I think, and it's worth celebrating, right, And I think
Speaker 3: Brazik is one of those things. What's That's why it
Speaker 3: has the appeal that it has. That's why Guts has
Speaker 3: the appeal that he has. That's why the story and
Speaker 3: this especially this part of the story, has the appeal
Speaker 3: that it has. We all want comrades, you know, we
Speaker 3: all want brothers in arms who would fight with us,
Speaker 3: who would die for us, who we would die for.
Speaker 3: We all wish to have a goal in mind, many people,
Speaker 3: and that's something that this touches on. Many people wish
Speaker 3: to be led. And I don't necessarily think that that
Speaker 3: is a like a vice. I don't think that's a
Speaker 3: sin to wish to be led. Life is difficult and frightening,
Speaker 3: and it's okay to look to others for some guidance, right,
Speaker 3: But you know, some people do not wish to be led.
Speaker 3: They want they have an ambition, they have a desire,
Speaker 3: and they wish to get there. Right. So some people
Speaker 3: are willing to help others with their ambition, and that's
Speaker 3: cool and that's great, right, But what we want and
Speaker 3: what we desire and having people willing to help us
Speaker 3: make it happen because we as guts learns through all
Speaker 3: of this. You know, like you cannot do it alone, right,
Speaker 3: You cannot do it alone as much as you would
Speaker 3: like to. You can't. Even in the Blacks Swordsmanark, right,
Speaker 3: like the black Storts of Ark is like about that,
Speaker 3: almost like him like trying to do everything by himself
Speaker 3: and it almost going catastrophically almost every time, Like he
Speaker 3: barely survives all of that, right, super injured. This arc
Speaker 3: shows you what he what he's missing, what he had
Speaker 3: and what he's missing, and it's something that many of
Speaker 3: us desire. And you know, towards the end, no spoiler, right,
Speaker 3: you understand why Guts, why Guts was has the mentality
Speaker 3: that he has in the Black Swordsman arc, why his
Speaker 3: mind is the way that it is. Because when something
Speaker 3: like this, when when that kind of safeguard for your
Speaker 3: soul is taken from you in the way that it is,
Speaker 3: then I think you are well within your rights to
Speaker 3: have that kind of response, the kind of response that
Speaker 3: he takes. Well, dude, this has been a ton of fun. Man.
Speaker 4: Like I said, we're playing in another one. We're gonna
Speaker 4: keep doing these. There won't be another six week gap.
Speaker 4: What I'm probably gonna do and you guys know this,
Speaker 4: the listeners, Uh, I'll probably have a rotating cast of characters.
Speaker 4: I've got a couple of people interested in covering different segments.
Speaker 4: Obviously Remiss will return. Actually all right, I'm on, I'm
Speaker 4: undecided yet. If it's gonna be one big one or
Speaker 4: two smaller ones. The point is you can stop jumping
Speaker 4: out for Zerk is back. You're welcome again, man, this
Speaker 4: was a ton of fun. Dude, Thank you so much
Speaker 4: for coming.
Speaker 3: Out, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 4: Thanks everyone know, keep your head up. I can't last forever.
Speaker 2: Good Night
Speaker 1: Thro the Bagariate, Devinment Gangarian devient problem