Berserk manga

Created by Kenturo Miura, Berserk is manga mayhem to the extreme – violent, horrifying, and mercilessly funny – and the wellspring for the internationally popular anime series. Not for the squeamish or the easily offended, Berserk asks for no quarter – and offers none!

Kentaro Miura is a manga artist most famous for his long-running manga series Berserk, a deeply detailed and bleak fantasy story about a lone swordsman named Guts. Miura is something of a legend within the manga world, with Berserk having been adapted to anime twice, twenty years apart: once in 1997, and again in 2017. But neither of these shows does his manga justice, and that’s thanks to his unique approach to drawing which is his alone, and cannot be replicated in any other medium. There’s nobody quite like Kentaro Miura!

Just one year later, Miura wrote another manga series, Ken e no Michi (The Way of the Sword). And so, he was clearly on a roll. If Miura showed this much promise, ambition, and raw talent at the age of ten, he was always going to be a success. And when he was just 22 years old he began writing Berserk, the manga he is now famous for across the world. In terms of longevity and scale alone, Miura’s work, dedication, and legacy are all on par with those of Japan’s most famous mangaka, One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda.

The beauty of the Berserk manga commes from how Miura realises its world through his art. While most fantasy worlds, like those of Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire rely on context to slowly and steadily build their world – which includes landscapes, architecture, language, food, economics, politics, fashion, the list goes on – Miura draws all of this. His writing is saved for, and concerned with, the dialogue and story surrounding Guts, while the world itself is presented to us through painstakingly detailed artwork.

In fact, Berserk is more known to passing observers and potential fans by its art than by its characters. This is why no anime has ever done the manga justice. Miura has a particular eye for detail. His panels, however big or small, overflow with dizzying amounts of detail that breathe so much life into his characters’ expressions, the clothes they wear, the rugged landscape of the world, the economic struggles of its people, and the food they eat. With a world this meticulously designed, and executed so flawlessly by considered and beautiful artwork, it’s no wonder Berserk suffers from the occasional hiatus.