Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Berserk
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5506 Location: Mexico |
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That's precisely my point though. The way they reworked this part of the arc gave them a prime opportunity to get rid of an unncessary and horribly framed rape scene (the one with the horse), but they didn't and instead forced it in and even gave it lavish 2D animation. They could've perfectly skipped that and gone straight to where Farnese is possessed by the demon but nope, gotta have that sexy rape scene there at all costs, even when it adds nothing to the story or the character. Instead of improving on the worst aspects of the source material (like the 1997 anime did), they're keeping them and highlighting them, even if they need to force them into the story and have no relevance whatsoever |
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Themaster20000
 Posts: 864 |
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They put the Rape Horse in due to how infamous it is by. It's the schlockiest thing to come of the series.It's suppose to be this horrific moment,but it's so freaking ridiculous that I can't take it seriously at all.
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Caramichael
Posts: 114 |
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All these discussions about the rapes makes me wonder, when are rapes for you not gratuitous and titillating? Could you give examples of works when it is not the case?
Because personally, if I can agree some of them are titillating, I never found them gratuitous in Berserk. I can find a plot justification behind most of them (except maybe Wyald like other said). For example in Farnese it is the final shock that breaks her world and becomes a traumatic event that spoiler[she eventually overcome in the Troll Arc where she has to overcome her fear to protect Casca]. I feel it is more striking in the manga where it is the triggers Guts to go in full "berserk" mode and his savagery kind of triggers her curiosity for him. |
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One-Eye
 Posts: 2261 |
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Story wise I was ok with the first episode. It let the viewers know where Guts is emotionally and mentally at the beginning of this journey, which was the best part for me. It introduces characters that will be his companions, provides a feeling of the darkness and cruelty in this world, and gives us a little fight to wet our appetites.
However, since that first episode I've been somewhat underwhelmed. Episode 3 just didn't flow very well for me. Also what happened to Isidro? He's kind of introduced and then seems to have fallen off the map, which makes it feel kind of awkward. Maybe they would have just been better off introducing him later? Or at least a glimpse of where he's at? I'm not ok with that OP. Is it supposed to remind everyone what happened in Berserk previously? I think most people will fall into one of two groups either they've seen or read Berserk and they don't need to be caught up to speed or its their first time watching and I'm not sure the OP is going to provide much for them. Also what was up with showing Casca in the OP getting assaulted? It felt unnecessary. I mean Guts is having flashbacks anyway, so the whole OP feels redundant to me. Visually, the whole thing is kinda fugly to me. I'm surprised considering other shows this season seemed to have gotten a higher budget when it comes to CG. Or maybe its because it is Berserk and they know that people are still going to watch and still going to buy as long as they don't completely poop the bed when it comes to the story. Usually if the story is garbage I don't care how nice something looks, I'll drop it. However, this is the first time I can remember almost feeling the opposite. Farnese looked awful these two episodes like some kind of plastic doll. I'm alright with them cutting things out or moving parts of the story around as long as its a coherent narrative and it maintains the spirit of the manga by the end. In a sense I'm watching in spite of my distaste for how it looks because I'm really curious what they will do with this adaptation. The story is long and detailed enough that I think they can pull something out and stitch together something interesting. I hope they can do that and that they don't disappoint. |
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Johan Eriksson 9003
Posts: 281 |
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To their credit, I don't think they made the Horse scene particularly sexy. The sudden shift to 2D animation and the extreme drop in frame rate gave it an incredibly surreal and nightmarish feel in my opinion. |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3491 Location: Back stateside |
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Yeah, I 100% agree, the opening credits are awful and unnecessary and I skip them every time. I thought maybe they'd be there just for the first episode to try to pick up any newbies and after that they'd, you know, show everything from this season, but nope, let's relive the Eclipse over and over again. As for Farnese's trauma in episode 3...I feel like it worked better here than in the manga simply because the TV show required it be less graphic (yes, it really is worse in the manga, I was dreading it). Instead it focused more on the psychology of it, on Gutss PTSD and on Farnese's own issues. Someone already mentioned it, but yeah, watching Farnese overcome her self-hatred and denial and fear has been a great part of her character arc, and I really hope they pull it off without it just being for shock effect. |
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Pipoko
Posts: 165 |
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Ah, Berserk.
I finally ended up watching the original 1997 series and I ended up really liking Berserk for it's story and character writing. Really good story. Yeah, the new anime looks like shit, but it has retained the writing quality. I was satisfied with the Berserk anime pretty fully despite the ending being what it was and technically don't need more, but I still really liked it, so I'm following this and the biggest thing is that it still feels like Berserk. It's still extremely compelling - Farnese is really interesting and I really want to know where Guts' character goes from here. I liked how the old anime dealt with nudity and rape much better, but the story is just so compelling as a whole, I'll look past it. |
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Valhern
 Posts: 916 |
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There is only one I remember, but there are others I've seen pointed out, it's just that I haven't watched them. That would be spoiler[Junketsu no Maria - Maria the Virgin Witch] (put in spoilers because it hasn't been that popular and may spoil the story since it's not a story about rape). I could, in a way, consider spoiler[GOSICK], because it's not exactly shown but implied that a woman shown pregnant was most likely raped since she is apparently tortured for her to give birth. At best there is an image of her covering her breasts after giving birth.
In the case of Farnese, I don't think that was ever the breaking point for her, I mean, she didn't change much after that except for when she meets Mozgus and crap hits the fan. Like, sure, that scared the hell out of her, but so did everything else that happened that night, especially within her own mind, the horse part didn't really add anything, and the anime made it look technically worse. |
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Theozilla
 Posts: 137 Location: Oakland, California |
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Unfortunately, (and I say this as a fan who has read and owns the entirety of the manga) I think this new anime somehow arguably animated/adapted the horse scene even more gratuitously than it was originally depicted in the original manga (and it already was pretty gratuitous there). Also the the way the anime has depicted flashbacks to the Eclipse (both in the opening and in the episodes themselves) has also somehow managed to make them more gratuitous than similar scenes in the manga (when flashbacks to the Eclipse occurred). And that's not even mentioning how the anime has severely whitewashed Casca during all her 2D animated appearances so far (and I don't think one can use "flashback lighting" as a valid excuse since Pippin (who is also dark skinned, though lighter than Casca was in the manga and 1997 anime) was colored correctly during the very same scenes. As for the review itself, I'd say you were far more generous than the quality of the episodes have warranted so far (though it's somewhat understandable if you have only watched the 1997 anime and movies and not read the manga). As for the cutting and combining of material that has actually severely negatively impacted the quality of the narrative, even if your manga-reader friends thought the post-Eclipse material meandered a lot. Which I'm actually curious as to what they specifically were referring to, because while the Black Swordsman Arc material is within the narrative chronologically post-Eclipse which many (if not most) fans agree is the weakest (though still very plot important, as the exclusion of it created already created plot-hole in the new anime in regards to Guts' possession of a behelit) of the 5 Arcs (which are the Black Swordsman Arc, Golden Age Arc, Conviction Arc, spoiler[Falcon/Hawk of the Millennium Empire] Arc, and the currently ongoing spoiler[Fantasia] Arc FYI) it is technically pre-Eclipse in terms of how it was published/written. The other post-Eclipse material (and it is post-Eclipse both narratively and publication-wise) and that was cut is the Lost Children Chapter (the first of the three Chapters of the Conviction Arc) and most fans really love that Chapter and is extremely character focused and was pretty important for developing Guts and Puck's characters to the point where they were at the beginning of the Binding Chain Chapter (which is essentially where Episode 2 tries to begin) and to appreciate the significance of their subsequent character development. If ever you ever think you could stomach it, I'd definitely recommend reading the manga (even if you absolutely had to skip the Golden Age Arc), it is by far the superior mode of experiencing the narrative and character writing/development of the series (and the occurrence of gratuitous sexual violence does significantly decrease later in the manga, particularly after volume 26-27 (Miura hasn't utilized sexual assault in the narrative since then IIRC)). As for Farnese and Serpico (who you can't really call the "new Casca and Judeau" IMO) I think you'll be happy know, even with the shoddy quality of the new anime adaptation, that they spoiler[are still alive in the manga and are far more developed characters than the named Band of the Hawks members (excluding the main trio) ever were. Farnese herself has arguably become the third most developed character in the entire series after Guts and Griffith.] Last edited by Theozilla on Sun Jul 17, 2016 5:46 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Caramichael
Posts: 114 |
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Dude you should spoiler the last 2 arcs
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Theozilla
Posts: 137 Location: Oakland, California |
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Really? I don't think the names of the most recent two Arcs are particularly spoilerly (at least no more spoilerly than like say the Star Wars movies sub-titles are). |
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CrowLia
Posts: 5506 Location: Mexico |
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They literally showed a close-up of the horse's tongue going over her naked breasts. Yes, it's horrific, but the framing makes it evident they were also going for titillation. There's not much that separates it from a run-of-the-mill monster hentai anime. Same with the scenes of Casca's rape in the OP, which, like One-Eyed and vashfanatic, I find nonsensical and unnecessary. I rarely ever skip over OPs, but I'm definitely skipping over this one
They're not gratuitous when they serve a purpose for the story (though whether that purpose is problematic, like Casca, whose rape only serves to incapacitate her and as an excuse to fuel Guts's revenge -apparently the slaughtering of all of his friends wasn't enough- is an entirealy different discussion) or when they are shown to portray the actual consequences of rape as a social and individual issue. They're not titillating when the framing of the event is not made to make the scene look "sexy" or "arousing". Fairy Tail has a good example because the contrast between anime and manga shows the differences between a grossly titillating scene and a purely horrific scene. There is a scene in which spoiler[Erza is naked and tortured, and it is heavily implied that she's raped by the villain]. In the manga, spoiler[we get numerous shots of her writhing naked body smeared with sweat and slime, multiple shots focusing on her breasts and it is also heavily implied that a tentacle monster would rape her. We see the creature's tentacles hovering close to her breasts and oozing slimeon her body]. It's a titillating scene. In the anime, spoiler[while her naked body is exposed, the camera doesn't linger on it. It actually fades out of the room and focuses on her screams of pain.] It's a scene that conveys the horrible things she's going through without making it "sexy". The scene is gratuitous in both cases because it has no purpose whatsoever, it has no consequence on her character or the plot and it makes one wonder why it was included, but at least the anime didn't go as far as to degrade her character for the sake of the male viewer's pleasure
Agreed on all accounts. What takes her to the breaking point is the demon that starts telling her about her own sexual deviations, being sexually assaulted by the horse wasn't really adding anything to all the horrors she had experienced, especially since the anime also had her be assaulted by the Apostle |
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JoeQ
 Posts: 77 |
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I love Berserk, but yeah, Miura's handling of women and rape scenes in particular is kinda... not good (yeahyeahyeah, I know, it's Dark Fantasy and yaddayaddayadda). Whenever females get raped or are threatened with it the scenes are shown in a very titillating way, Casca's case being the most infamous. There's some gruesome stuff coming up that I wouldn't be at all surprised to see just get cut.
In the anime version though, Farnese's barbie doll anatomy just made the whole scene ridiculous. C'mon, at least be creative with your censorship! |
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Caramichael
Posts: 114 |
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Difference is that here there are people that didn't read the manga, first of all Jacob, and if spoiler[Falcon/Hawk of the Millennium Empire Arc] is not a spoiler then I wonder what is. |
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Theozilla
Posts: 137 Location: Oakland, California |
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Justin Sevakis I think also wrote a good think piece on the issues regarding the visual of depiction of rape/sexual assault in anime/manga in general a year or two ago in one of his Answerman articles As for Berserk specifically this blog post I think does a really good job of analyzing and commenting on where the original manga succeeds and fails (in regards to being gratuitous) in it's visual and narrative depiction of rape/sexual assault. |
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