Berserk?

The anime is exceptionally good and exceptionally violent. The dub is passable. It's not top notch, but it's good enough. I woudl recomend the Japanese language track.
 
I think the main characters were pretty well cast in the dub, but some of the extras and minor characters were kinda hit-and-miss. I think it's one of those shows that's passable no matter which way you watch it: if you're the sort who usually watches dubs, the dub certainly isn't bad enough to make you switch, but if you're a hardcore sub purist, it won't change your mind either.

The anime really only has two major flaws: a relatively cheap budget meant they had to cut some corners animation-wise, and the series enRAB on a huge cliffhanger. Essentially, it's a 25-episode commercial for the manga. (-: The story and characters are great, though, so my advice is to check out the anime, and if you like it, be prepared to check out the manga to see how the story continues after the end.

And of course, I won't complain in the slightest if you should happen to check out the abridged version (linked in my sig) somewhere in there as well, but you'll probably enjoy it more if you watch the anime first.
 
Its a great series, but you have to read the manga, when a certain abridged series claimed the anime to have the worst cliffhanger in the universe it wasn't kidding, Its untopable.
 
On the other hand, having seen that anime episode in advance just makes the manga scene hit you that much harder when you finally get to it.

The local anime club does "surprise picks" every meeting, where a couple of lucky souls get to choose an episode from a show that they like and make the rest of us watch it, giving as much or as little background discussion as possible. This is quite possible the worst idea ever, as demonstrated when somebody brought in Festival episode of Berserk (the last one) and gave no background whatsoever - giving us no clue what was going on, no attachment to the characters, and no idea of just how heavy this whole scene actually was plot-wise. Naturally he just wanted to see the audience squirm (they turned it off during the
almost-tentacle-scene.
An utter waste, but on the other hand, it did get me to start reading the manga.

As for the manga... as has been said, it's extremely violent. There's a lot of extreme violence towarRAB women. There's a fair bit of graphic sex (bordering on pornographic in some instances). Not for the squeamish. But there's a good story and great characters (in spite of all the naked women being dismerabered, I hesitate to call the series misogynistic, since the actual female characters are some of the best I've read in a while).
 
Actually, watching Berserk Abridged got me curious about the actual show. Same thing happened with naruto Abridged, funnily enough.

I took B:TAS' creator's (guessing that's you Mynd?) and did not watch the Abridged Finale. I'll watch the real thing now that I've gotten more assurances of this being a good series to start up.

Just out of curiosity I saw the manga clip, but does Guts really enjoy choking women during sex? I'm no stranger to kinks and stuff but that just seems weird.
 
That scene was taken out-of-context for humor purposes. It's less that he enjoys it, and more that he goes temporarily insane. And yeah, I go by rabroadi2k on YouTube (Mynd Hed was taken there, sadly).

Also, just a friendly reminder for everyone to keep plot spoilers in spoiler tags, since Nikkolas (and likely other readers of this thread as well) hasn't seen it.
 
nah, it all goes back to some tragic traumatic events he incurred as a child that screwed him up in the head and still haunt his nightmares at night sometimes, heres a hint, you know that Donovan guy from Gantz abridged, you know, the guy from Kato's school?, he had a run in with that guy.
 
Hmm, if the ending is really as poor as you all claim it to be, then I thnik my time is better spent with the manga now. My Blockbuster only has up to volume 3, anyway, and that hasn't even been in stock for a while.
 
Animation is definatly done on the cheap and there's 26 episodes. Totally worth the watch I'd say, although I'm a bit Jaded there because I like so many others apparently, found it as a result of Berzerk Abridged and wanted to better understand the in-jokes.

For all that there's a lot that's silly or just plain bad about it, I found it to be entirely enjoyable to watch. It certainly doesn't suffer from the opposite which is a state of being so perfect that it's crap but most of what's bad about it doesn't detract from the story.

The ending is a total Bum out though not nearly so bad as Evangelion.
 
I wouldn't call the ending "poor"-- it's really powerful, in fact, one of the most moving moments I've gotten out of, well, any work of art ever. It just leaves you wanting more, that's all. If you start from the assumption that you're only going to get a single season, I don't think they could have ended it any other way. Thank God they didn't do what so many other anime do in a similar situation and try to wrap things up all neat and tidy with some lame copout filler crap. It took some balls to end things the way they did, and I appreciate it.



25, actually.
 
That part is taken way out of context. He actually does have a good reason for doing that. Guts isn't a mindless killing machine. By the end of the events in the anime, which is really the begining but whatever, he kills for a very specific purpose and he does it extremely well overall.
 
The ending isn't so much poor as it is a cliffhanger that unfortunately was never continued in animated form.

There's nothing wrong with reading the manga, but the anime is great as well. Even if they'll never continue the damn thing.
 
The other nice thing is that the anime follows the manga so closely that you can essentially watch it in lieu of reading Vols. 5-8 or so without missing much.
 
This guy on another site was complaining about how the anime was horrible. To prove his point, he showed this vast and deeply important. difference.
The nime shows Guts going to a town. The manga shows him killing a demon, having sex and then going to a town.

I'm missing so much!
[/sarcasm]
 
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