Berserk - Season 1

The Asylum, the independent movie company, and distributor is known for its "megahits" like Sharknado and Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus. They are going to make a new version of Lord of the Rings. It will feature Kevin Sorbo as Aragorn, Hulk Hogan as Legolas, and the unforgettable Steven Seagal as Gimly. You are probably thinking I have gone crazy and wondering in vain how this relates to the new anime series Berserk. Well, try to imagine what I have just described and also try to imagine the result of what I have described. You still do not get it? All right, then, well, on the one hand, this is a classic fantasy adventure device, the holy grail, whose story a lot of people know by heart. So you know the characters are great, the narrative will be great, and everything is just as it should be with a fantasy adventure. However, on the other hand, there is a TV studio producing low-budget movies, C-movies, and whatever the hell movies for a select group of enthusiasts. (I am not criticizing anyone because, as a fan of moe, I have seen a few of Lindenfilm's and Millepensee's productions). What do you get out of this movie? At best, a passable B-movie that none of the die-hard fans of the prequel will want to talk much about, a few people will be interested, and some will even award it five stars because it is "Lord of the Rings" after all. At worst, an unwatchable experiment with bad cinematography, crazy effects, and unpleasant acting will put most people off. A few people will disassociate themselves from it, and a few will still award it five stars because it is "Lord of the Rings". So what is the new Berserk like? At first, it looked like a mega-fuck up; the animation is something a normal person would not want to watch, the movement of the characters is peculiar, and some of the characters, like Puck, are pretty awful. Plus, the opening skips some pretty interesting chapters of the manga. I think the only thing that saves the new adaptation of Berserk is the fact that the anime's creators stick to the source material quite well, so the dark narrative, the gore, violence, and sex, all the "good stuff" that people were looking forward to is more or less there. Sure, they try to make the action-packed scenes look epic, even though the terrible way the characters move spoils it. It is extremely gory, and there are a lot of sex scenes, even though they censored the genitalia and nipples, which takes away from the effect (although it is still much better than the irritating light beams obscuring we get in other anime series). However, even so, I slowly came to realize that it is actually watchable and that it has an atmosphere too. Even though I am still irritated by the execution, if the anime's creators had gone the traditional animation route and avoided visual experimentation, this could have been a very good anime series. In the end, Berserk is more of an average anime series because I know the characters and narrative are generally good (Guts is the best character, of course, and anyone who says he has no charisma obviously knows nothing about the meaning of that word). The action and atmosphere are passable; the soundtrack is very good; however, the animation is terrible. I am awarding it 6/10, mainly because of the narrative and Guts. Also, I will definitely be watching more episodes of this in 2017. (05.07.2016) (mniej) (więcej)