Yo i just realized that the lost children arc is like a twisted retelling of peter pan. Or closer to the book depending on who you ask. Like peter pan, rosine kidnaps children and promises eternal life. Guts is captian hook trying to find neverland and take down Peter pan. A crocodile even ate captian hooks hand, like how an apostle ate guts' hand.
The Lost Children Arc is one of the few moments in fiction where children are properly used as horror elements. It’s not just them being weird, foreboding little shits, but are actually going out and doing horrific things all on their own. And the reason why they do it is because “they’re playing like adults do.” It reminds me a lot of what Solzhenitsyn described in The Gulag Archipelago Vol. 2 regarding the children who were swept up into the Soviet gulags and forced to grow up without any parental or moral guidance at all. They became more than monsters; they became DEVILS. Imagine the worst possible things human beings can do… done by actual fucking children. And reading this chapter, all I could think about was how accurate it was. The cruelty of children is truly a horrifying thing to see when completely unbound from morality. Easily one of the best moments in Berserk.
The Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which killed around a fifth of the country's entire population, was disproportionally made up of teenagers and children and even led by a former teacher.
Solzhenitsyn did not actually "describe" what happened in the gulag, he took the letters and gossip of the prisoners, whatever he could from anyone who wants to talk, and added it to his own imagination, the only absolute truth there is that the gulag existed and some names and surnames, everything else is twisted or simply not true or "someone somewhere once said", even the biographies of real people are often turned upside down. The author wrote the book without any access to real documents, or any documents, and readers simply could not verify any of it, especially those who are not in Russia and especially when these books were written, even now many new things and studies are simply not published or not translated in english. Regardless of how you feel about the USSR, these are simply fiction books, they have nothing to do with history or historical analysis. And a lot of children were not separated from their parents by force in the USSR in 30s, they had no choice, relatively recently there was a world war, a civil war, and in the Russian Empire and in the USSR there was a famine every five years until the 50s, and most homeless/parentless children ended up in orphanages, not prison camps. My friend's mother grew up in a Soviet orphanage, kids were bullying her because of her hair, but she got an free education, a job, and a free room in a communal apartment, and she was fine P.s. I'm sorry if I offended you in any way, but this is a painful topic for me personally.
@@artemgushin5228 You know, when you say things like this, it's ok, but when I say the same facts about the concentration camps, all of a sudden, I'm a Nazi supporter.
Lost Children not only has excellent character progression and story elements, it has probably the most hardcore fight in the entire manga which really says something
That part during the guts vs rosine fight when guts let rosine stab him through the arm was the first time I had a physical reaction when reading manga
@@biscuits4761 I mean realistically the thing that should’ve happened when he did that is his arm should’ve popped off from being hit by essentially a fighter jet remember that Rosine is going Mach 2
@@charlottewalnut3118 we're talking about a world where there are necklaces that can transform people into demons and a man that fights spirits at night and has had an encounter with the servants of God. If we wanted realism we wouldn't be here.
@@charlottewalnut3118 yeah, it took as guts is just built different, (even if there was a human strong enough to swing a 400 pounds sword around he would still probably have his arm torn off tho...)
I was just thinking this. It wouldn’t even have to be called Berserk, they could call it Lost Children with zero context about the greater story behind it. I would go the the theater to see normis shit themselves as they walk out.
Market it as a GrimDark version of Peter Pan where Hook is the murderous antihero seeking vengeance on the monster who stole his child and tore his family apart and Peter made a deal with the devil and demonically corrupts the children he manipulates into joining his cause.
@@joshuamartinez8280 no just focus on Jill, her abusive father and the fairies and Rozine; it’ll be more of a dark scene. Maybe add in a burning building and the soldiers in the burnt out forest just so it sets them up as the big bads to a degree. Also add in the moving tree with spirits just so it’s slightly more ‘oh okay so maybe they burnt the the tree and sadly other things’ Only context is Fairies, fairies playing- big fairy/elf, soldiers, evil spirit tree, soldiers, and a forest burnt, abusive father The logical setting for a fairy tail movie titled ‘lost children’ would be them running somewhere like treasure island, but not all is well with a evil tree which may be burnt at some point in the story. Maybe add in the girl praying and the knights, and the big preacher praying and slamming his face into The ground just got a bit more detail later in trailer 2-3, and add in the father’s war stories with flash backs so it appears more of a ‘oh hey a war with fairies and spirits caught in the crossfire’ Edit Maybe add in the black dog knights to be involved with the war flash back off in the distance just so we have a ‘clear’ antagonist for trailers to focus on, Wylad would fit the role perfectly. Think Spiderwick in a way.
I just finished the arc and holy shit it was so fucking intense and it's my god knows how many times I've reread the manga, but I would always look forward to the lost children arc
Seriously. I was like "ooooh daaaamn!... Damn!.... DAMN!...holy shit!... DAAAAAAMN!!!... oh, oh, AWWWWWW SHIT! Damn! Awww yeah! Hot damn!" during that killing spree in the forest. Just the sheer creative ways Guts not only killed his opponents, but straight up manages to barely evade attacks that would have proven fatal if they landed just had me sitting there mouth agape and flipping pages like a madman wanting to see what was next. Like if it were animated or filmed, it would have been the greatest single-handed (literally!) bad guy massacre scene since the Crazy 88 battle in Kill Bill. And that spinning boom/slash double fatality?... *chef kiss* 😙👌
Your "Holy Fucking Shit" remark when the kids played war and adult attacks was literally mine. I kinda had to pause for a moment and figure out just what in the fresh Hell I read and saw. Then proceeded to enjoy Guts being darker and edgier than death metal the rest of the way.
Wow. I think Berserk's Apostles is what Kimetsu no Yaiba's demons tried to be. I always found it weird that when a demon's time is up, they would flashback to their "tragic" past to explain how they gotten here, but I always found it hollow and an uninteresting detour to the fight's conclusion. The main difference is, knowing the demon's past doesn't change a damn thing. They are still unrepentant enemies of humanity without any redeeming traits. You could remove their backstory and it would not change the outcome. Berserk doesn't do that. Whatever character traits we discover either through flashbacks or exposition comes back meaningfully and influences the fight decisively. Well done, Berserk!
I think the best example of this is Wyald. When we see him return to that shriveled form, you understand why he became what he was, but you aren't demanded to feel a certain way. If you feel sorrow, it's because you've reached that conclusion yourself organically, not because a bunch of over-dramatic waterworks are being crammed down your throat. And this is all done with a single panel and no dialogue.
Tanjiro: You poor thing, despite all the awful things you have done I shall comfort you in your last moments. Guts: *Proceeds to shoot a fuck ton of crossbow bolts into demon's face.*
Ngl imagine if Lost Children Arc Guts found Tanjiro and Nezuko instead of Giyu. *Wasp - The Horror blasts through the snow forest while Guts shows them who the real beast is*
I haven't watched much of Demon Slayer, but by the sound of it, it seems as if the flashbacks aren't leveraged well because they're not in service of *anything* greater than "feel sad for this demon". Here, Rosine is a character explored throughout from multiple angles and in cumulative fashion-- she's once just seen in the world, then faced with the protagonist, then we read Jill's experience with her, then we see the kind of person Rosine is, and then we see her past from her perspective before we see her in her dying moments. Rosine isn't just a character you're meant to feel sorry for-- she's a character of focus, fleshed out as such and in a variety of ways, largely in service of illustrating this theme/message of "everyone has to struggle against life the best they can and in their own way, because there's no paradise to run to". The revelation of Rosine's character is practically natural-- you learn what you learn at moments where the details are relevant, and in a variety of ways. And I get the sense that this is the product of the same particularly mindful mindset that gives Wyald nearly none of that apart from revealing his original form upon his death. Miura had a good sense of when to show, how much to show, and when to hold. I guess you could say he had good "backstory pacing", though the notion of pacing is too vague for my liking.
In a way guts is like a lost child becuase of his past. I'd say one of the themes of the lost children arc was vulnerability of children, and vulnerability in itself. As a child guts was weak but he was able to grow stronger. Not every child can say the same thing. You see that with the children in this arc and the story as a whole with how the berserk world is unfair like our own. The strong carve a path for themselves like Griffith and Guts. Edit: i noticed you bring up vulnerable children so cool.
Inocent girl who had bad father does mistake and becomes a literal monster: Gets violently and psinfully killed. Griffith: Gets kingdom and love from 90% of humanity (10% are Kushans, one angery man and his gang) Edit: thanks for the likes guy's
Lost Children is my favorite arc mostly for it being the key moment for Guts’ change in character, for him to finally abandon the vengeful quest of the Black Swordsman and go after Casca after having his dream. If he never met Jill or fought Rosine, he very likely would’ve lost what shred of humanity he had left and truly become like one of the monsters he hunts, something Jill glimpsed sight of when he doused himself in the blood of the children eggs after getting set on fire, a truly horrific sight that I imagine was the final nail in the coffin to show readers that this isn’t just some fun, violent quest for revenge, this is a man’s spiraling descent into the darkness with little left to bring him back. Not to mention Jill. Jill is a precious angel that deserved better, and she’s a key component in Guts maintaining his humanity and sanity. She’s essentially the next generation Guts too; an abusive dad, it’s implied she was sexually abused by her father’s friend, much like Donovan did to Guts, and her life is just misery on top of everything she witnesses with Guts, yet despite it all, she tries to see the light at the end of the tunnel, while Guts embraces the darkness, shown so at the end of the arc, when Guts leaves her to disappear into the dark while Jill returns home with her father towards the light. I can only wonder how events would turn out if Guts let her accompany him, but god knows it would be a world of nightmares for her.
@@charlottewalnut3118 talk about irony... the worst is that rosine is probably a raped corpse by now since griffith changed the world, bringing magical being like, I don't know, montain troll, isn't her village near montain forest ? seems she was not safe at home, not at all
Another great video; the "There's no paradise for you to escape to" panel always gets me in the feels and while it's not as detailed or extravagant as Miura's best art it always holds a place in my heart just because of how much it hits home to me
Notice how the father loves to go to battle while the “children” in this arc don’t want to return back to the battlefield but don’t have a choice. Truly a horrible world like our own. We must return to our battlefields. Thank you for making this video it was brutal but gives a hint of hope even if small. Life isn’t fair. Miura really cared about this story didn’t he? True passion
Personally, when I consider that Guts is, in fact a father during the "no paradise for you to escape to" it just wrenches my heart and hurts me deep. I lack the words to fully process why but it just messes with me on a deep level
The panel of Jill sleeping on Guts lap is still one of my favorites due to the idea that Guts could have had this if his life didn't take a turn for the worst
Berserk spinoff where instead of hunting apostles like they owe him money, Guts adops kids orphaned by the circumstances of the world as a means of coping with the loss of his unborn
I will admit. It wasn't the Bugman fight with Guts that got my "I hate bugs" senses tingling. It was the Wasp-Elves. Those things are the creepiest thing in Berserk, to me.
I love the subversion of expectation in the theme of light vs dark in Berserk. The Holy See go on about how they’re hunting this prophesied Hawk of Darkness and they believe it to be Guts, as what they see following him is just what looks like a psychopathic massacre of innocence - later on in the Fantasia arc the same Holy See view Griffith as the saviour to this tale, the Hawk of Light, but we as the reader know the truth.
The fact that Converge’s Wretched World plays in the intro makes you a lot cooler than previously thought. Keep up the good work, Loli, I can already tell part is gonna be even better as whole.
Escapism isn't healthy. That said, Miura lives in my heart. In all our hearts. In the deepest, blackest, most wretched corners of our hearts, he lives as a light of hope softly saying "don't give up, straggler".
I'm so happy people like you who understand this fantastic story can bring more eyes to Miuras masterpiece Berserk. These videos are excellent. Spread the love, read Berserk everyone
1:09:18 had me crying for some reason with the way he said it and the subtle music getting louder "it's guts, holding a torch; he lit the whole place on FIRE"😂😂
Alecxandxr *and* AlmightyLoli releasing videos about my personal favorite arc within 2 days of each other? It really is a happy Halloween. :) I'm sure Miura appreciated the work fans like you guys, who understand his work, put into your videos. I know I'm happy about it, as the more quality reference videos I have to give to people entering into the series, the better.
One of the reasons why i love Berserk so much and even relate to Guts and other characters, is because how close it hits to home for me due to how Miura portrayed child neglect and abuse in this merciless world throughtout the story, and Lost Children is the jewel of the crown about this subject.
Lost children is what really hooked me on berserk cuz it was the most metal fucking thing ever created and really cool but as I kept reading I realized that it’s a lot more than that and it gets much deeper and emotional
pretty happy this got separated from the main conviction arc. i think lost children was the first part of berserk that had me sitting up in my seat reading it with my eyes glued to the page in disbelief.
i thank you for doin this special, dude! can’t wait for the full part 3 to come out! with the announcement (yesterday) of Studio Taka’s Berserk motion comic dub comin out 18th of december and now this. so for Berserk content im livin good
Upon another binge rewatching, I think your music placement for certain parts of the story is nothing short of amazing. The Mandy track playing over rosines death and gut’s “there’s no paradise” speech is just something amazing. I wanna thank you for reinvigorating my love for berserk yet again.
I'm excited for the full video. You go really full in depth and come with a very good narration of the world building, the foreshadowing and the situations in comparison to others, and that's what I love about these videos: Describing the characters, their personalities, their ambitions, the world through their eyes and the differences. Keep it up my man.
Jesus Christ, really wish this got adapted properly as I love these stories. Not necessarily due to how fucked up the situations are, but it's the human story. Showing what mistakes can lead to and how damning the consequences are, and this... this being a perfect hellish representation of that kind of story. So far my stories never went this dark, but it definitely is the story beats I like to write regardless if the story's tone is happy/fun or a dark, depressing tragedy. Can't wait for the rest of part 3!
Will agree! Berserk has the rare ability to use utterly brutal subjects without coming across as too needlessly edgy and it rather fits the setting. Plus like you said, really good storytelling beats! But like most people, a lot of us can't imagine ourselves writing a story this dark and I can't blame em'
@@applesandgrapesfordinner4626 Funny enough, since I wrote this comment I wrote a new chapter/episode to one of my series as it explored dark aspects of the protagonist and the world around her. Granted, won't ever be like Berserk as Guts is a special kind of beast (haha), but it was fun and harrowing to explore such places for my series
WASP plus Berserk, a match made in hell, if the retrospective doesn't work you could always do leitmotif berserk metal videos especially that guys into with the horror by wasp in the background, that shit was gold.
It's been a long time since I've read the prototype, and you kind of mentioned this off-handedly, but it's surprising how much more "generic" the story was. Anyone can come up with "My mom was killed by demons," but even when you boil the final backstory to its simplest form, it's drastically more unique, and even trying to boil it down into a succinct blurb is a task unto itself.
I never noticed the similarities between guts and peekaf, but that explanation definitely fits, especially at the end where the 2 of them were the only ones left in their "village!:
The lost children arc is my favourite arc in the hole manga. It was the first time at least for me were we really see Guts being a asbulot monster. You really got to see him scaring the fuck ut of his demonic enemy. At least to me so was this were I truly saw the beast that is Guts. Seriously he was pure savagery in carnet.
The last time I read Berserk I left off at the end of the Conviction arc, and recently wanted to finish the manga since it officially ended but realized that I kinda forgot about a lot of what happened. I'm so glad that I found your videos bc it's such a great way to refresh my memory without actually rereading the whole thing, and I appreciate how you analyze the themes that I definitely didn't catch when I read it. Looking forward to the next vid!
Yeah her proboscis attack shoulda killed Guts instantly Like it or not he has no right to be surviving anything like that his head should’ve left his body the moment it was struck by that or his brains should’ve been scrambled like good eggs and dribbled out of his skull whatever remained of it probably to be drank up by the remaining wasp elf things
1:12:05 in DND there's this thing called Swarm type enemies, like a swarm of rats or a swarm of leeches, and they're vulnerable to fire, that said, they can jump into a character's space to indicate they're ON the character, JUMPING INTO FIRE IS A WAY TO ACTUALLY MAKE THEM GO INTO THE FIRE TOO, DEALING LOTS OF DAMAGE TO THEM, and specially little to you if you're a Barbarian for example. So Guts isn't crazy, the not-elves would take lots of damage since they're smaller than him and can resist less heat, their bodies reach boiling point faster, and so he can jump THROUGH THE FIRE so that he's mostly fine.
1:22:50 Not sure if this counts as a personally flaw, but I think Zod's personal code of honor, pride, and standards helps humanize him. We know he has no problem murdering people, but he'll do it *professionally* and will at least be nice enough to not rape you during/after it. Guts even got his respect after their encounter. He saved Guts during the Purple Rhino fight by throwing to his sword to him and even let him ride him against the Emperor.
Nope. He saved him because he was going to be a vital sacrifice during the Eclipse, as the closer a sacrifice is to the chosen ones the better, and during their fight Zodd saw Griffith jump into the "duel" to save Guts. Also it seems that he can receive messages from the Godhand to some degree, as he was tasked by them to guard the portal vortex thingy. So while he respects Guts, he saved him cus it was his job to some degree
35:29 My absolute favorite picture of Puck is when he has the little “harmful bug” sticker on him and he’s absolutely dumbfounded, the humor is so diligent it gets me every time.
I genuinely think the art style Miura used for the Lost Children arc best represents what Berserk is at its absolute Best. To me, Berserk looked cooler here than in any other arc, truly Gothic.
That was the best arc so far by a mile. I never read the manga and never expected to like an arc more than the Golden Age, but Rosine's story was truly off the charts beautiful.
The structure of Lost Children reminds me a bit of the Robert E Howard story "The Black Stranger." While nominally about Conan, he's almost a secondary character, with the focus on the populace of a remote outpost and how they deal with the supernatural horror stalking them. It's much like Guts and the village here.
Dude I have been looking forward to this! I have listened to both part 1 and 2 at least 4 times each at work. Love your work on these vids keep it up fam!
Just now going through your archives as I’m just getting back into the series on a reread. Been following Berserk since the real early 90s (old weeb). Got some access to early mangas from a friendly military brat. Even that early I knew it was epic. Love listening to thoughtful discourse on it and you seem to get the material in spades which while different for each reader, does reflect a lot of my own insights into the story. Thanks for all the content to chew through.
I love the fact that you address almost every singe dialogue box, as for me who's non native English speaker with being average at best with it, this does helps allot! For example 1:15:09 I wouldn't come to conclusion that she pierces sound with her speed, but looking back on it, it does make perfect sense. Even tho someone would say it's just a throw away dialogue that you can skip and not miss anything, it's still nice to know the whole context of the scene. Thanks for your work!
If this video was 5 hours fucking long, I’d watch or listen to it very intently and then come back to it the next day. We can never have too much of berserk, thank you my fellow struggler :D
Prototype Guts feels like a grown up Isidro.
Thanks now I can’t unsee it
Yeah I felt that too, who knows maybe miura went back to the prototype said screw it made that version of guts into a new character except less edgy
Thanks I can't unsee it
Omg i hate this.
Plot twist... the "Prototype" was actually a SEQUEL this whole time!!!
Yo i just realized that the lost children arc is like a twisted retelling of peter pan. Or closer to the book depending on who you ask. Like peter pan, rosine kidnaps children and promises eternal life. Guts is captian hook trying to find neverland and take down Peter pan. A crocodile even ate captian hooks hand, like how an apostle ate guts' hand.
Damn, now I'm never going to read the works of J.M Barrie the same way again
This is genius
That's a good observation.
Ayo how has the community slept on this
Oooh that explains why this part feels familiar
This "sneak peak" is an hour and thirty seven minutes long. I love this channel.
Berserk is a sneak peak into a black hole
If this is a sneak peak, then the full version must be Lord Of The Rings long; I hope 🤞🏻
Long man good 👍
@@MidTierVillain it's pretty damn close
@@charlie1234500 Mauler reference??
The Lost Children Arc is one of the few moments in fiction where children are properly used as horror elements. It’s not just them being weird, foreboding little shits, but are actually going out and doing horrific things all on their own. And the reason why they do it is because “they’re playing like adults do.” It reminds me a lot of what Solzhenitsyn described in The Gulag Archipelago Vol. 2 regarding the children who were swept up into the Soviet gulags and forced to grow up without any parental or moral guidance at all. They became more than monsters; they became DEVILS. Imagine the worst possible things human beings can do… done by actual fucking children. And reading this chapter, all I could think about was how accurate it was. The cruelty of children is truly a horrifying thing to see when completely unbound from morality. Easily one of the best moments in Berserk.
The Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which killed around a fifth of the country's entire population, was disproportionally made up of teenagers and children and even led by a former teacher.
Solzhenitsyn did not actually "describe" what happened in the gulag, he took the letters and gossip of the prisoners, whatever he could from anyone who wants to talk, and added it to his own imagination, the only absolute truth there is that the gulag existed and some names and surnames, everything else is twisted or simply not true or "someone somewhere once said", even the biographies of real people are often turned upside down. The author wrote the book without any access to real documents, or any documents, and readers simply could not verify any of it, especially those who are not in Russia and especially when these books were written, even now many new things and studies are simply not published or not translated in english.
Regardless of how you feel about the USSR, these are simply fiction books, they have nothing to do with history or historical analysis.
And a lot of children were not separated from their parents by force in the USSR in 30s, they had no choice, relatively recently there was a world war, a civil war, and in the Russian Empire and in the USSR there was a famine every five years until the 50s, and most homeless/parentless children ended up in orphanages, not prison camps.
My friend's mother grew up in a Soviet orphanage, kids were bullying her because of her hair, but she got an free education, a job, and a free room in a communal apartment, and she was fine
P.s. I'm sorry if I offended you in any way, but this is a painful topic for me personally.
Small fucking world, man. I just finished Volume one of the Archipelago
And really, there is nothing more pure and cruel as a child.- Jet Black “Cowboy Bebop”
@@artemgushin5228 You know, when you say things like this, it's ok, but when I say the same facts about the concentration camps, all of a sudden, I'm a Nazi supporter.
The part with the “pretend war” between the “Elves of Misty Valley” gave me massive Lord of the Flies vibes.
Very possible that was a source of inspiration on Miura's part
the "adult attack" part OMG... as a survivor of that kind of violence, it disturbed me deeply, like DAMN
For me, it was like the Woodland Critters from South Park.
Lost Children not only has excellent character progression and story elements, it has probably the most hardcore fight in the entire manga which really says something
That part during the guts vs rosine fight when guts let rosine stab him through the arm was the first time I had a physical reaction when reading manga
@@biscuits4761 I mean realistically the thing that should’ve happened when he did that is his arm should’ve popped off from being hit by essentially a fighter jet remember that Rosine is going Mach 2
@@charlottewalnut3118 we're talking about a world where there are necklaces that can transform people into demons and a man that fights spirits at night and has had an encounter with the servants of God.
If we wanted realism we wouldn't be here.
@@charlottewalnut3118 Guts is just built different
@@charlottewalnut3118 yeah, it took as guts is just built different, (even if there was a human strong enough to swing a 400 pounds sword around he would still probably have his arm torn off tho...)
Lost Children would make a great movie...
And would set the internet on fire. Like those kids.
I was just thinking this. It wouldn’t even have to be called Berserk, they could call it
Lost Children with zero context about the greater story behind it. I would go the the theater to see normis shit themselves as they walk out.
Market it as a GrimDark version of Peter Pan where Hook is the murderous antihero seeking vengeance on the monster who stole his child and tore his family apart and Peter made a deal with the devil and demonically corrupts the children he manipulates into joining his cause.
@@joshuamartinez8280 no just focus on Jill, her abusive father and the fairies and Rozine; it’ll be more of a dark scene.
Maybe add in a burning building and the soldiers in the burnt out forest just so it sets them up as the big bads to a degree.
Also add in the moving tree with spirits just so it’s slightly more ‘oh okay so maybe they burnt the the tree and sadly other things’
Only context is
Fairies, fairies playing- big fairy/elf, soldiers, evil spirit tree, soldiers, and a forest burnt, abusive father
The logical setting for a fairy tail movie titled ‘lost children’ would be them running somewhere like treasure island, but not all is well with a evil tree which may be burnt at some point in the story.
Maybe add in the girl praying and the knights, and the big preacher praying and slamming his face into
The ground just got a bit more detail later in trailer 2-3, and add in the father’s war stories with flash backs so it appears more of a ‘oh hey a war with fairies and spirits caught in the crossfire’
Edit
Maybe add in the black dog knights to be involved with the war flash back off in the distance just so we have a ‘clear’ antagonist for trailers to focus on, Wylad would fit the role perfectly.
Think Spiderwick in a way.
@@joshuamartinez8280 maybe but it would feel incomplete without the context of what happened earlier in the manga
I just finished the arc and holy shit it was so fucking intense and it's my god knows how many times I've reread the manga, but I would always look forward to the lost children arc
If this is only the BEGINNING of part 3 than I’m definitely in for a treat.
It’s a crazy ride, enjoy
"Puck killed 18 of them."
Source: Dude trust me
Seems legit.
Maybe he pulled an Antman and crawled up their butts and killed them from the inside. I could see it happening in Berserk
"My source is that I made it that f**k up"
Source: You know what? Puck u!!!
“I’ve been looking forward to this!” -Count Dooku
"Cowards who do not even smoke crack cannot handle it."
That Viper reference was amazing.
He's either a PST fan or knows about Viper's Magnum Opus, and I can't decide which option is funnier XDDD
“Fuck you, give me your wife.” Probably the funniest thing I’ve heard in a bit
"give me your wife, hand her over"
Kakyoin moment right there
Guts going absolutely kill crazy is what sells this arc for me.
Seriously.
I was like "ooooh daaaamn!... Damn!.... DAMN!...holy shit!... DAAAAAAMN!!!... oh, oh, AWWWWWW SHIT! Damn! Awww yeah! Hot damn!" during that killing spree in the forest. Just the sheer creative ways Guts not only killed his opponents, but straight up manages to barely evade attacks that would have proven fatal if they landed just had me sitting there mouth agape and flipping pages like a madman wanting to see what was next. Like if it were animated or filmed, it would have been the greatest single-handed (literally!) bad guy massacre scene since the Crazy 88 battle in Kill Bill.
And that spinning boom/slash double fatality?... *chef kiss* 😙👌
@@IaMaPh1991 Miura was just built different.
YO I've been hyped for weeks for this. Eagerly looking forward to the rest
Same, the hype is real 👏🔥
Your "Holy Fucking Shit" remark when the kids played war and adult attacks was literally mine. I kinda had to pause for a moment and figure out just what in the fresh Hell I read and saw. Then proceeded to enjoy Guts being darker and edgier than death metal the rest of the way.
“The beast got into the nursery” is such a good line
Sounds like a tagline for a Bungie Halo level segment, it's so good.
it does go pretty fucking hard dude
Im going to the gym so i have something to listen to while benching
Pump iron so you can rip and tear the local elementary school
@@Senator-Wary my guns are exclusively for leftists and pedophiles
you know , i really wanna do a cosplay of guts someday, but i have long hair so
there must be a sacrifice here
@@DeandreSteven Bruh -_-
@@mrcocoloco7200 ?
Wow. I think Berserk's Apostles is what Kimetsu no Yaiba's demons tried to be. I always found it weird that when a demon's time is up, they would flashback to their "tragic" past to explain how they gotten here, but I always found it hollow and an uninteresting detour to the fight's conclusion. The main difference is, knowing the demon's past doesn't change a damn thing. They are still unrepentant enemies of humanity without any redeeming traits. You could remove their backstory and it would not change the outcome. Berserk doesn't do that. Whatever character traits we discover either through flashbacks or exposition comes back meaningfully and influences the fight decisively. Well done, Berserk!
I think the best example of this is Wyald. When we see him return to that shriveled form, you understand why he became what he was, but you aren't demanded to feel a certain way. If you feel sorrow, it's because you've reached that conclusion yourself organically, not because a bunch of over-dramatic waterworks are being crammed down your throat. And this is all done with a single panel and no dialogue.
Tanjiro: You poor thing, despite all the awful things you have done I shall comfort you in your last moments.
Guts: *Proceeds to shoot a fuck ton of crossbow bolts into demon's face.*
Ngl imagine if Lost Children Arc Guts found Tanjiro and Nezuko instead of Giyu.
*Wasp - The Horror blasts through the snow forest while Guts shows them who the real beast is*
I haven't watched much of Demon Slayer, but by the sound of it, it seems as if the flashbacks aren't leveraged well because they're not in service of *anything* greater than "feel sad for this demon". Here, Rosine is a character explored throughout from multiple angles and in cumulative fashion-- she's once just seen in the world, then faced with the protagonist, then we read Jill's experience with her, then we see the kind of person Rosine is, and then we see her past from her perspective before we see her in her dying moments. Rosine isn't just a character you're meant to feel sorry for-- she's a character of focus, fleshed out as such and in a variety of ways, largely in service of illustrating this theme/message of "everyone has to struggle against life the best they can and in their own way, because there's no paradise to run to".
The revelation of Rosine's character is practically natural-- you learn what you learn at moments where the details are relevant, and in a variety of ways.
And I get the sense that this is the product of the same particularly mindful mindset that gives Wyald nearly none of that apart from revealing his original form upon his death. Miura had a good sense of when to show, how much to show, and when to hold.
I guess you could say he had good "backstory pacing", though the notion of pacing is too vague for my liking.
@@hadoke Guts just looked at that demon, and wasn't gonna take their sh*t.
23:35
"Well one bandit decides to take his pants off because it turns out he's a moderator for ResetEra."
Lmao
In a way guts is like a lost child becuase of his past. I'd say one of the themes of the lost children arc was vulnerability of children, and vulnerability in itself. As a child guts was weak but he was able to grow stronger. Not every child can say the same thing. You see that with the children in this arc and the story as a whole with how the berserk world is unfair like our own. The strong carve a path for themselves like Griffith and Guts.
Edit: i noticed you bring up vulnerable children so cool.
Was looking for something to do my assignments to. This is perfect.
Demon children: playing catch with an eyeball
Both me and assumedly Puck: "Oh."
Inocent girl who had bad father does mistake and becomes a literal monster: Gets violently and psinfully killed.
Griffith: Gets kingdom and love from 90% of humanity (10% are Kushans, one angery man and his gang)
Edit: thanks for the likes guy's
The man just can't stop winning can he?
@@emytzu well he will die after 1080 years so if we wait...
@@emytzu sadge
And, weirdly, I only really hate one member of that 90%.
That stupid psychic child.
Angry gigachad
Lost Children is my favorite arc mostly for it being the key moment for Guts’ change in character, for him to finally abandon the vengeful quest of the Black Swordsman and go after Casca after having his dream. If he never met Jill or fought Rosine, he very likely would’ve lost what shred of humanity he had left and truly become like one of the monsters he hunts, something Jill glimpsed sight of when he doused himself in the blood of the children eggs after getting set on fire, a truly horrific sight that I imagine was the final nail in the coffin to show readers that this isn’t just some fun, violent quest for revenge, this is a man’s spiraling descent into the darkness with little left to bring him back.
Not to mention Jill. Jill is a precious angel that deserved better, and she’s a key component in Guts maintaining his humanity and sanity. She’s essentially the next generation Guts too; an abusive dad, it’s implied she was sexually abused by her father’s friend, much like Donovan did to Guts, and her life is just misery on top of everything she witnesses with Guts, yet despite it all, she tries to see the light at the end of the tunnel, while Guts embraces the darkness, shown so at the end of the arc, when Guts leaves her to disappear into the dark while Jill returns home with her father towards the light. I can only wonder how events would turn out if Guts let her accompany him, but god knows it would be a world of nightmares for her.
Guts must become one with the Ectojizzm in order to battle Henry on Mt Hikami.
But he must stay wary, lest the grand demon Kroeger take him away on his tour bus.
"This is a coming of age for Jill." That's one heck of a way to grow up.
"There is no heaven for you to escape" that literally just sent a chill through down my spine
Yeah it’s sad
Elfhiem
@@charlottewalnut3118 talk about irony... the worst is that rosine is probably a raped corpse by now since griffith changed the world, bringing magical being like, I don't know, montain troll, isn't her village near montain forest ?
seems she was not safe at home, not at all
isnt it weird that stament has been proven wrong by elfhelm
@@latviandragon2718 I hate that this comment aged poorly. I wanted it to be true.
Another great video; the "There's no paradise for you to escape to" panel always gets me in the feels and while it's not as detailed or extravagant as Miura's best art it always holds a place in my heart just because of how much it hits home to me
Notice how the father loves to go to battle while the “children” in this arc don’t want to return back to the battlefield but don’t have a choice. Truly a horrible world like our own. We must return to our battlefields. Thank you for making this video it was brutal but gives a hint of hope even if small. Life isn’t fair. Miura really cared about this story didn’t he? True passion
Personally, when I consider that Guts is, in fact a father during the "no paradise for you to escape to" it just wrenches my heart and hurts me deep. I lack the words to fully process why but it just messes with me on a deep level
The panel of Jill sleeping on Guts lap is still one of my favorites due to the idea that Guts could have had this if his life didn't take a turn for the worst
Berserk spinoff where instead of hunting apostles like they owe him money, Guts adops kids orphaned by the circumstances of the world as a means of coping with the loss of his unborn
Calling the bug pseudo apostles "Biggy" and "Smalls" was the funniest shit ever for some reason
Should've been Ornstein & Smough
missed opportunity for the obligatory "Smough" and "Ornstein" joke
shoulda called them
SUPER NINTENDO
SEGA GENESIS
@@adamseeker2956When I was dead broke man I couldn’t picture this
I will admit. It wasn't the Bugman fight with Guts that got my "I hate bugs" senses tingling. It was the Wasp-Elves. Those things are the creepiest thing in Berserk, to me.
I love the subversion of expectation in the theme of light vs dark in Berserk. The Holy See go on about how they’re hunting this prophesied Hawk of Darkness and they believe it to be Guts, as what they see following him is just what looks like a psychopathic massacre of innocence - later on in the Fantasia arc the same Holy See view Griffith as the saviour to this tale, the Hawk of Light, but we as the reader know the truth.
The fact that Converge’s Wretched World plays in the intro makes you a lot cooler than previously thought. Keep up the good work, Loli, I can already tell part is gonna be even better as whole.
Hells yeah
When will the conviction video come out?
in what part is played
what music is played when guts burn cocoons?
@@whiteeye3453 W.A.S.P. - The Horror
I would like to get a million People to stomp out and chant "MIURA LIVES !" for a whole minute
You have a stomp out of me.
"Dead? Legends never die kid."
Escapism isn't healthy. That said, Miura lives in my heart. In all our hearts. In the deepest, blackest, most wretched corners of our hearts, he lives as a light of hope softly saying "don't give up, straggler".
@@girla9480 we know. But thanks for voicing your concerns.
I’m in!
I'm so happy people like you who understand this fantastic story can bring more eyes to Miuras masterpiece Berserk. These videos are excellent. Spread the love, read Berserk everyone
Anyone else notice how tired Guts looks in this chapter? Wasn't he fighting Rosine off like, maybe four days of no sleep?
As a follow up to this comment, now after finishing the video, I realise how redundent I sound.
1:09:18 had me crying for some reason with the way he said it and the subtle music getting louder
"it's guts, holding a torch; he lit the whole place on FIRE"😂😂
The “lost chapter” is pretty much cannon now because we are never going to get a end to the story.
Alecxandxr *and* AlmightyLoli releasing videos about my personal favorite arc within 2 days of each other?
It really is a happy Halloween. :) I'm sure Miura appreciated the work fans like you guys, who understand his work, put into your videos. I know I'm happy about it, as the more quality reference videos I have to give to people entering into the series, the better.
This TH-cam series manages to feed me Berserk while I wait to be able to acquire the rest of the Manga (College is a bitch).
Same got like 8 volumes now
We art' kinsman. O' blessed king of longing.
@@nocturnalv.1209 Yup
One of the reasons why i love Berserk so much and even relate to Guts and other characters, is because how close it hits to home for me due to how Miura portrayed child neglect and abuse in this merciless world throughtout the story, and Lost Children is the jewel of the crown about this subject.
Lost children is what really hooked me on berserk cuz it was the most metal fucking thing ever created and really cool but as I kept reading I realized that it’s a lot more than that and it gets much deeper and emotional
Studio Taka's Berserk episode 3 trailer just released man! It's very promising for sure.
Can’t wait!
Guts=Florida man with tactics that are actually working
You're a blessing upon this cursed earth, keep on keeping on, Loli.
The end of Lost Children never fails to make me cry.
Almighty Loli does it again! Great video. Also nice touch adding in The Horror by WASP from the Kill Fuck Die album. WASP is the shit.
Can't wait for the entire thing to come out!
pretty happy this got separated from the main conviction arc. i think lost children was the first part of berserk that had me sitting up in my seat reading it with my eyes glued to the page in disbelief.
Happy Halloween!
Also Griffith still did everything wrong.
35:57 I love gut's expression in this panel and his line "Well they ain't pesky little elves. They're somethin' else."
What timeline are you living in to be able to watch till 35:57 when the video is only up ?
@@MrKailanb Early access for patrons.
@@MrKailanb well i just saw it early when it was unlisted
that smile is really something
This series is the definition of “quality over quantity” thank you.
"Hand over your wife" can get you into trouble out of context.
But in this context I agree with you.
"Cowards who do not even smoke crack...cannot handle it" im gonna use that in normal conversation.
i thank you for doin this special, dude! can’t wait for the full part 3 to come out! with the announcement (yesterday) of Studio Taka’s Berserk motion comic dub comin out 18th of december and now this. so for Berserk content im livin good
Once again an excellent play by play of this story. I'm looking forward to the next part.
I've re-read Berserk for several times now and even so there's still little details I've missed, like peekaf and guts' story. Awesome vid!
Not gonna lie, the joke about resetera moderator got my sub.
Upon another binge rewatching, I think your music placement for certain parts of the story is nothing short of amazing. The Mandy track playing over rosines death and gut’s “there’s no paradise” speech is just something amazing. I wanna thank you for reinvigorating my love for berserk yet again.
I'm excited for the full video. You go really full in depth and come with a very good narration of the world building, the foreshadowing and the situations in comparison to others, and that's what I love about these videos: Describing the characters, their personalities, their ambitions, the world through their eyes and the differences. Keep it up my man.
The music you pick for these is always perfect
The lost children arc broke my soul into pieces, i'll be foreever greatful to Miura for this masterpiece
Jesus Christ, really wish this got adapted properly as I love these stories. Not necessarily due to how fucked up the situations are, but it's the human story. Showing what mistakes can lead to and how damning the consequences are, and this... this being a perfect hellish representation of that kind of story. So far my stories never went this dark, but it definitely is the story beats I like to write regardless if the story's tone is happy/fun or a dark, depressing tragedy.
Can't wait for the rest of part 3!
I doubt it can be adapted properly, simply because of how DARK it is. Like this is some really dark stuff even by Berserk standards.
Will agree! Berserk has the rare ability to use utterly brutal subjects without coming across as too needlessly edgy and it rather fits the setting. Plus like you said, really good storytelling beats!
But like most people, a lot of us can't imagine ourselves writing a story this dark and I can't blame em'
@@applesandgrapesfordinner4626 Funny enough, since I wrote this comment I wrote a new chapter/episode to one of my series as it explored dark aspects of the protagonist and the world around her. Granted, won't ever be like Berserk as Guts is a special kind of beast (haha), but it was fun and harrowing to explore such places for my series
@@ChaosReacon137 As long as it works for you! Whatever ticks
WASP plus Berserk, a match made in hell, if the retrospective doesn't work you could always do leitmotif berserk metal videos especially that guys into with the horror by wasp in the background, that shit was gold.
Nothing feels better than reading the manga on your own if you have good internal interpretation/creativity and put some good soundtrack.
It's been a long time since I've read the prototype, and you kind of mentioned this off-handedly, but it's surprising how much more "generic" the story was. Anyone can come up with "My mom was killed by demons," but even when you boil the final backstory to its simplest form, it's drastically more unique, and even trying to boil it down into a succinct blurb is a task unto itself.
I never noticed the similarities between guts and peekaf, but that explanation definitely fits, especially at the end where the 2 of them were the only ones left in their "village!:
The lost children arc is my favourite arc in the hole manga. It was the first time at least for me were we really see Guts being a asbulot monster. You really got to see him scaring the fuck ut of his demonic enemy. At least to me so was this were I truly saw the beast that is Guts. Seriously he was pure savagery in carnet.
"Asbulot monster"
I'm taking that
The last time I read Berserk I left off at the end of the Conviction arc, and recently wanted to finish the manga since it officially ended but realized that I kinda forgot about a lot of what happened. I'm so glad that I found your videos bc it's such a great way to refresh my memory without actually rereading the whole thing, and I appreciate how you analyze the themes that I definitely didn't catch when I read it. Looking forward to the next vid!
So since Rosine can fly at super sonic speeds
I demand a fight between her and an F-22 Raptor
Yeah her proboscis attack shoulda killed Guts instantly Like it or not he has no right to be surviving anything like that his head should’ve left his body the moment it was struck by that or his brains should’ve been scrambled like good eggs and dribbled out of his skull whatever remained of it probably to be drank up by the remaining wasp elf things
1:12:05 in DND there's this thing called Swarm type enemies, like a swarm of rats or a swarm of leeches, and they're vulnerable to fire, that said, they can jump into a character's space to indicate they're ON the character, JUMPING INTO FIRE IS A WAY TO ACTUALLY MAKE THEM GO INTO THE FIRE TOO, DEALING LOTS OF DAMAGE TO THEM, and specially little to you if you're a Barbarian for example. So Guts isn't crazy, the not-elves would take lots of damage since they're smaller than him and can resist less heat, their bodies reach boiling point faster, and so he can jump THROUGH THE FIRE so that he's mostly fine.
This is the best chapter in berserk and the best chapter of all Manga. I just.... gaaaaaa it's so good, gets me everytime
1:22:50 Not sure if this counts as a personally flaw, but I think Zod's personal code of honor, pride, and standards helps humanize him.
We know he has no problem murdering people, but he'll do it *professionally* and will at least be nice enough to not rape you during/after it.
Guts even got his respect after their encounter. He saved Guts during the Purple Rhino fight by throwing to his sword to him and even let him ride him against the Emperor.
Nope. He saved him because he was going to be a vital sacrifice during the Eclipse, as the closer a sacrifice is to the chosen ones the better, and during their fight Zodd saw Griffith jump into the "duel" to save Guts. Also it seems that he can receive messages from the Godhand to some degree, as he was tasked by them to guard the portal vortex thingy. So while he respects Guts, he saved him cus it was his job to some degree
I cannot stress enough how much I love your content. Top tier quality. I only regret there is not more of it
Hearing KFD era Wasp when guts rolls up in the nest is the epitome of Berserk. Great job sir!
35:29 My absolute favorite picture of Puck is when he has the little “harmful bug” sticker on him and he’s absolutely dumbfounded, the humor is so diligent it gets me every time.
I genuinely think the art style Miura used for the Lost Children arc best represents what Berserk is at its absolute Best. To me, Berserk looked cooler here than in any other arc, truly Gothic.
That was the best arc so far by a mile. I never read the manga and never expected to like an arc more than the Golden Age, but Rosine's story was truly off the charts beautiful.
it is my favourite aswell i have read this since i was 14, still my favourite arc after 10 years.
1:12:48 love the crack in your voice when you're trying to explain how over the top savage Guts is
So Guts is basically Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy put in the most extreme of environments? Because holy shit is that compelling. :O
The structure of Lost Children reminds me a bit of the Robert E Howard story "The Black Stranger." While nominally about Conan, he's almost a secondary character, with the focus on the populace of a remote outpost and how they deal with the supernatural horror stalking them. It's much like Guts and the village here.
Quite appropriate, because Conan the Barbarian was one of the inspirations behind Berserk
@@IaMaPh1991 I'm not surprised at all. It's probably why I got so into Berserk as a Robert E Howard fan.
If you have this much of the video done and you're confident in what you wrote then it's totally worth just releasing this chunk for the fans.
Dude I have been looking forward to this! I have listened to both part 1 and 2 at least 4 times each at work. Love your work on these vids keep it up fam!
Of all the grim dark shit that berserk does, this is for sure the most appropriate part to release as a Halloween special lol.
Just now going through your archives as I’m just getting back into the series on a reread. Been following Berserk since the real early 90s (old weeb). Got some access to early mangas from a friendly military brat. Even that early I knew it was epic. Love listening to thoughtful discourse on it and you seem to get the material in spades which while different for each reader, does reflect a lot of my own insights into the story. Thanks for all the content to chew through.
Said it once and I'll say it again. The dedication to this series from our boy is why I'm subscribed.
despite murdering a kid, a dead demon kid, a bunch of insect kids. and strangling his own kid right at birth. he's make a great dad!
I love the fact that you address almost every singe dialogue box, as for me who's non native English speaker with being average at best with it, this does helps allot! For example 1:15:09 I wouldn't come to conclusion that she pierces sound with her speed, but looking back on it, it does make perfect sense. Even tho someone would say it's just a throw away dialogue that you can skip and not miss anything, it's still nice to know the whole context of the scene. Thanks for your work!
Converge AND Akira Yamaoka?!?!?... SUBSCRIBED!
Loved the choice of W.A.S.P. for the climax, such an awesome band for such an epic manga!
"It's Guts. Holding a torch. He lit the whole place on fire."
Cue the guitars.
The thought of rosine being dragged down to hell makes me sad even though she was so horrible
If this video was 5 hours fucking long, I’d watch or listen to it very intently and then come back to it the next day. We can never have too much of berserk, thank you my fellow struggler :D
Man, I really like your side commentary about the panels and characters of these play by plays in mangas.
I remember watching this when it came out such a good memorie love it and this channel so much means so much to me.
Wait did i just hear you mention a part 5 and 6? Thats a hell of a dedication man. Keep it up loli
Fighting demon wasps to W.A.S.P - The Horror 🤘 I see what you did there. I love it!