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NEWS: Viz Hosts 4°C Founder Tanaka, Berserk Showing at Comic-Con Int'l




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Hellrasinbrasin



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 23
PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 12:07 am Reply with quote
...Now I can ask Mr. Tanaka if the product his company produced met his expectations. While not being rude by asking how his studio dropped the ball with adapting the books.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14746
PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 12:48 am Reply with quote
Hellrasinbrasin wrote:
...Now I can ask Mr. Tanaka if the product his company produced met his expectations. While not being rude by asking how his studio dropped the ball with adapting the books.


Just remember, when ya ask, to say Miss.

(Unless ya really hated the adaptation so much that you mean it as a sly insult.)
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Hellrasinbrasin



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 23
PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 12:52 am Reply with quote
Funny... But really the 3rd film is going to be a nightmare and not the literal kind you have at night. Oh well at least I have the books to keep me warm at night as well as the 97 tv series and 2 video games.
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anemayfan



Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 66
PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 2:16 am Reply with quote
Hellrasinbrasin wrote:
I have the books to keep me warm at night as well as the 1997 tv series and 2 video games.
It's difficult to squeeze in 3 volumes of manga into an 80 minute long movie. Even though it still lacked details from the manga, the 1997 anime did a good job, but it had 8-9, 23-min episodes to do it.

These movies are CliffNotes to the Golden Age arc. They are to garner interest in a series' whose source manga is over 2 decades old and whose anime adaptation did a pretty good job 15 years ago. Studio 4­°C flashed Guts' origin, skipped the midnight raid (which is one of my favorite scenes), and Zodd's battle was far too brief. However, I believe they're doing a good job because it's gotten a co-worker of mine, who's main prior interests were just Naruto & Bleach, to watch the anime series, which will hopefully get him to read the manga.

If enough interest in Berserk is generated by these movies, hopefully it will lead to the Conviction Arc getting animated which I would prefer over spending resources on another 25 episodes retelling the Golden Age Arc which the 1997 anime series already did well.
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Hellrasinbrasin



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 23
PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 2:38 am Reply with quote
[quote="anemayfan"][quote="Hellrasinbrasin"]I have the books to keep me warm at night as well as the 1997 tv series and 2 video games.[/quote]It's difficult to squeeze in 3 volumes of manga into an 80 minute long movie. Even though it still lacked details from the manga, the 1997 anime did a good job, but it had 25, 23-min episodes to do it.

These movies are CliffNotes to the [b]Golden Age[/b] arc. They are to garner interest in a series' whose source manga is over 2 decades old and whose anime adaptation did a pretty good job 15 years ago. Studio 4­°C flashed Guts' origin, skipped the midnight raid (which is one of my favorite scenes), and Zodd's battle was far too brief. However, I believe they're doing a good job because it's gotten a co-worker of mine, who's main prior interests were just [b]Naruto & Bleach[/b], to watch the anime series, which will hopefully get him to read the manga.

If enough interest in [b]Berserk[/b] is generated by these movies, hopefully it will lead to the [b]Conviction[/b] Arc getting animated which I would prefer over spending resources on another 25 episodes retelling the [b]Golden Age[/b] Arc which the 1997 anime series already did well.[/quote]

I can't even see how that would be possible anemayfan as these films focus more on the set pieces then on the characters and story.
If the audience has no connection to the characters I don't care what happens to them if their is no story I'm not invested in it ... you follow.

Trying to tell 3 Volumes of material in 60 minutes is not the way to approach an adaptation. If money is the issue for them not being able to have done it Right then I'll not knock them as hard as I have been but if it was just because they didn't care I won't hold back you follow.

The Director and writers are the pair responsible for the hack job the films became and I'm sorry for the staff attached to the project
as their skills were wasted.
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nightjuan



Joined: 22 Jan 2008
Posts: 1473
PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 3:53 am Reply with quote
Hellrasinbrasin wrote:

If the audience has no connection to the characters I don't care what happens to them if their is no story I'm not invested in it ... you follow.


Except that you're being too...unimaginative. The existing fans should already know the movie does not properly reflect the entire complexity and depth of the original manga in terms of characterization and storytelling, but this does not mean that at least a part of the audience won't find a few of those characters and stories interesting, even based on their simplified forms present in the film trilogy.

Think of this project as a promotional demo or teaser, if you will, rather than something else. Different individuals will develop different levels of investment, not necessarily identical to those of manga readers, for the same reasons that not everyone automatically likes or dislikes the same stories, characters or scenes. As a purely casual fan of Berserk who hasn't read the relevant manga chapters in years, the first movie was inferior to the original work but it did not make me run away in horror...though I did laugh at the odd use of 3-D CGI, which is probably the second worst choice made during this film project.

What's the really worst choice then? Trying to make a movie adaptation in the first place. Berserk is not particularly suited for films, let alone ones of short or moderate length, because the story has so much content and so much detail that a truly faithful telling demands either a massive running time or a completely different format.

In a way, working on this trilogy is destined to be considered a thankless task for that particular reason, because it's impossible to avoid cutting at least a few "important" scenes when the narrative is chock full of them. I guess fans tend to be extremely conservative about how to present the tale, while not understanding how and why the decisions are made. In that sense, I don't see why you would want to blame the director and his staff for structural issues that are outside of their control and which involved additional parties.

We don't really know what Studio 4°C is expecting out of these films, other than maybe get past the Golden Age arc as quickly as possible, but it would be interesting to ask them questions that aren't too loaded.


Last edited by nightjuan on Tue Jun 26, 2012 3:58 am; edited 1 time in total
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anemayfan



Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 66
PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 3:57 am Reply with quote
Hellrasinbrasin wrote:
I can't even see how that would be possible anemayfan as these films focus more on the set pieces then on the characters and story.
If the audience has no connection to the characters I don't care what happens to them if their is no story I'm not invested in it ... you follow.

Trying to tell 3 Volumes of material in 60 minutes is not the way to approach an adaptation. If money is the issue for them not being able to have done it Right then I'll not knock them as hard as I have been but if it was just because they didn't care I won't hold back you follow.

The Director and writers are the pair responsible for the hack job the films became and I'm sorry for the staff attached to the project
as their skills were wasted.
I understood where you were coming from. Long time Berserk fans weren't happy when we heard the entire Golden Age arc was going to be condensed down to just 3 movies and I was included among them. This displeasure was expressed in previous forum posts and I didn't want to rehash what was already said. That's why I referred to this movie series as "CliffNotes". It's just not possible to do a decent adaptation of the Golden Age arc in just 3 movies even if they were 3 hours long each, which they aren't. There's just not enough time to fully flesh out each character properly in this format, which is why its more of a summary instead of a true adaptation.

Many of us would rather they just skipped doing these movies and animate the Conviction arc instead. The 1997 anime series already did a good adaptation of the Golden Age arc so why even bother doing these movies? A 25 episode anime adaptation already came out 15 years ago covering this arc already. There's a whole new generation of anime fans that have never heard of Berserk, many of my friends/co-workers are among them. They started to get into anime during the early Naruto and Bleach craze starting in 2003. There was plenty of money for anime at the height in 2007-8. Studios were pumping out lots of crap during that time because there was a demand in the US for this "new" anime, the economy was good, and the general American public was eating it up, so money was flooding into Japanese anime studios. Today, the economy is down and money is tighter.

This project developed to celebrate Berserk's 20th anniversary. Getting funding for any anime, let alone one based on a manga series over 20 years old isn't that easy. Is there still any interest in animating something that old? Is it worth creating a sequel to anime that ended 14 years ago? I'm sure if they had the money they would've just created a late night 25-26 episode anime series based on the Conviction arc and continued from were the previous adaptation left off. They took their limited budget and decided to do a summarized retelling of the Golden Age arc in the hopes that the new animation and pretty sets would attract this newer anime generation and build up interest. It's true the story suffers because it's short and there's not enough time to form a bond with the characters, but it succeeded in attracting this newer anime generation. My co-workers are part of this crowd and the fan-subbed 1st movie did enough to get them to want to borrow my Berserk DvDs and for me that's a success. Some are waiting for the 2nd movie, but a couple didn't want to wait asked to borrow my Berserk Box set. I'm hoping after the 2nd & 3rd movies more will want to watch the 1997 adaptation and read the manga.

I agree that this is hack job, but all summaries are. I do think the Director and writers did a good job picking out the main points of interest considering they had to fit it within this limited format. Finally, I'm hoping this builds up enough interest to get investors believing that animating the Conviction arc and continuing the story is worth spending the money on a proper (at least 25-26 episode) adaptation.
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Zopyros



Joined: 01 Jun 2012
Posts: 103
PostPosted: Tue Jun 26, 2012 4:19 am Reply with quote
I look forward to the film :3
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NJ_



Joined: 31 Oct 2009
Posts: 2997
Location: Wallington, NJ
PostPosted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 3:19 am Reply with quote
Dub cast announced! Cool

https://www.facebook.com/BerserkFilm/timeline/story?ut=32&wstart=1341126000&wend=1343804399&hash=502980093052012&pagefilter=3

Quote:
Thanks everyone for a spectacular viewing of Berserk tonight! Here's the full dub cast list as promised.

GUTS - MARC DIRAISON
YOUNG GUTS - COLIN DEPAULA
GRIFFITH - KEVIN T. COLLINS
CASCA - CAROLYN KERANEN
JUDEAU - CHRISTOPHER KROMER
CORKUS - DOUG ERHOLTZ
RICKERT - MICHELLE NEWMAN
PIPPIN - PATRICK SEITZ
ZODD - MICHAEL ALSTON BALEY
GAMBINO - RUSSELL NASH
YOUNG GUTS - COLIN DEPAULA
KING OF MIDLAND - CHRIS SMITH
BAZUSO - RUSSELL NASH
JULIUS - JESSE CORTI
CHARLOTTE - RACHAEL LILLIS
HASSAN - MICHAEL SORICH
ADONIS - COLIN DEPAULA
SIR RABAN - MARC THOMPSON
GASTON - SEAN SCHEMMEL
GENERAL GIEN - SEAN SCHEMMEL
MAJOR GENERAL - MARC THOMPSON
GIEN - SEAN SCHEMMEL
BLACK RAM CAPTAIN - PATRICK SEITZ
ANNA - LISA ORTIZ

ADDITIONAL VOICES -
CHRIS JAI ALEX
JAMISON BOAZ
MARIA DENTE
SEYQUE DEVUEX
CURTIS FORTIER
NATHAN JOHNSON
JUDE B. LANSTON
GARY LITTMAN
RUSSELL NASH
CHRIS NIOSI
PATRICK SEITZ
DIETRICH SETO
MICHAEL SINTERNIKLAAS
MICHAEL SORICH
MARC THOMPSON
AARON UMETANI
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Surrender Artist



Joined: 01 May 2011
Posts: 3264
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
PostPosted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 6:46 am Reply with quote
Wow, they actually brought in a lot of the television series cast, including all three of the leads. There are a few changes, especially for actors who had only a handful of anime credits, but they seem to have gotten all of the important ones. I actually didn't expect that given that the original series was released a decade ago and had a cast with a lot of people who haven't done much anime in quite a while.

Did they mention the recording studio and director? I would expect that it's NYAV post with Michael Sinterniklaas directing, especially as he appears in the 'other voices' section, but I could be overreaching.
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