#berserk prototype

Kentaro Miura, autor de Berserk falleció el 6 de Mayo.

El 20 de mayo de 2021, el departamento editorial de Hakusensha declaró que Kentaro Miura falleció el 6 de mayo debido a una disección aórtica aguda. Kentaro Miura, artista de manga destacado que es más conocido por ser el autor del manga “Berserk”, murió el 6 de mayo a las 2:48 pm debido a una disección aórtica aguda. A los 54 años. El día 20, Hakusensha informó la noticia en su sitio web…

AAAA Puck and Guts were so intimate in the Berserk Prototype sobs I wish that stayed (I miss early Berserk! Puck, current Puck is just a comedy relief :c)

Also I love Gut’s expressions, I also wish that stayed :c 

Also and plus: 

As I recall it was originally a proposal for a shonen series rather than a seinen one which does speak to the tonal difference and i guess simpler worldbuilding?  And I think the legacy of Vuana (the Dark God who is the leader of the Apostles in this version) kind of hangs over the actual first arc - not that Vuana is literally there, but rather you can still see the remnants of the idea that Apostles are just evil monsters who work for evil beings. There’s less of the nuance and ambiguity that starts coming into the story with the Slug Count, for example, and which eventually expands through the whole series. And of course “Apostle” itself, as a name, is a holdover from that time as well.

Puck is essentially the same, and I can see pretty clearly how Guts as he appeared in BSM is a sort of seinen-ized version of Prototype!Guts...

But I think the most interesting thing to me is that originally the impetus of Guts’ anger was the murder of his mother by Apostles, which doesn’t really set my heart alight. That said, it’s notable because so many vengeance quest type stories are sparked by the murder of a lover or spouse or something, and it does look like Miura wanted to avoid that trope a bit so he focused on other potential catalysts. It’s funny though because his spontaneous decision to make Casca a love interest kind of undermines that, but at the same time her loss is tied into a much larger loss/trauma so its not as direct, at least.

Yeah. So the obvious observation about her is that she shares her character design with Griffith. And not many other character similarities.

But i feel like Kentaro Miura has sort of reused elements of her character in the final version of the manga as well. Most of all in the lost children arc with Jill.

both are little girls who Guts encounters in his ‘black swordsman’ phase and almost unintentionally rescues. They develop a sort of admiration bordering on an innocent crush on him. And then guts later fights an apostle who they are under threat from. and then he leaves. And we do get a lot more about Jill than Frikka but I still sort of wonder about the similarities.

I also see elements of Frikka in some of Casca’s early characterization. Something to do with the similarity of imagery and this acceptance of what their fate maybe- regardless of how unpleasant it is.

And then there’s this guy

So the first time I read the Berserk Prototype I almost immediately dismissed any actual similarities in character between the two - except of course for the massive crush on Guts- mostly because Frikka stood out to me as a rather submissive character and that was a word i’d never use to describe Griffith. So Griffith is a lot of contradictory seeming things. Cold and affectionate, moral and immoral, terrifying and adorable, dark and light and yet within dominant and submissive he is dominant and dominant . There isn’t a single submissive bone in his body whatsoever.

But there is this one panel which stood out to me.

And for the strangest reason this reminded me of this( i don’t even know why)

This strange sort of dissociation from the situation. doing the math. At the end of the day a girl will be tortured and killed. At the end of the day soldiers will die. How does it matter which girl or which action prevents this.