- Bury Your Art: Chapter 83 was famously printed only in the original magazine run and not reproduced in tankoubon volume 13. This was done at Miura's request on the grounds that he decided in hindsight that the chapter defined The 'Verse's cosmology too much, and would limit his creative freedom going forward. Despite that, nothing that he wrote afterward ever actually contradicted what was revealed there.
- Cash-Cow Franchise: Berserk has made it a long way for what many used to consider a niche Dark Fantasy seinen franchise: the manga was published from 1990, and by the time of Miura's death in 2021 it had reached 41 volumes worth of material, and had some 50 million volumes in circulation. Adaptations include Berserk (1997) by OLM Incorporated; two video game adaptations by Yuke's, Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage (Dreamcast, 1999) and Berserk: Millennium Falcon Hen Seima Senki no Shō (PS2, 2004); The Berserk: The Golden Age Arc theatrical anime film trilogy (2012-2013) by Studio 4°C, which produced this
◊ amusing fast food cross-promotion; Berserk (2016), a TV anime by GEMBA and Millepensee which picks up after the movies; the video game Berserk and the Band of the Hawk (Fall 2016) developed by Omega Force; a light novel, The Flame Dragon Knight; and an Official Guide Book. Fans can spend hundreds of dollars on high quality figurines of Guts, Griffith, or Casca, and all of the animated versions are available in deluxe Blu-ray box sets. Japanese fans can also buy Berserk keychains, pillows, and even underwear! - Colbert Bump: Some shows with more of a mainstream Western fanbase have helped Berserk to get noticed:
- PewDiePie introduced Berserk to some of his large fanbase by praising it (specifically Berserk (1997) and the manga) on his show.
- Some learned about Berserk from the episodes of DEATH BATTLE! pitting series protagonist Guts up against Nightmare from the Soul Series and Dimitri from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
- Guts and Berserk (1997) were featured on Man at Arms.
- Lots of people were introduced to Berserk purely by Word Of Mouth from hearing Dark Souls fans talking about it so much.
- Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: At the time of Miura's death, Spanish newspaper El Mundo published an article about him, which included a brief synopsis of Berserk. Oddly enough, however, the journalist seems to have got Berserk and Fist of the North Star mixed up in his memory, because his synopsis claims its story is that of "Guts, a lonely warrior pursued by dark forces who seeks to avenge his old master."
- Demand Overload: The news of Kentaro Miura's untimely death caused volumes of the deluxe hardcover edition of the manga to sell out on Amazon, thanks to a massive influx of new fans curious of the work he has left behind.
- Died During Production: Kentaro Miura suffered a fatal aortic dissection on May 6th, 2021, which left the manga's future uncertain. The September 10th, 2021, issue of Young Animal magazine featured Episode 364, completed by Miura's assistants from the last manuscript he was working on when he died. This episode was accompanied by an official statement from the Editorial Department of YA magazine, saying there was unfortunately no information to share about the future of Berserk at that date. On June 7, 2022, it was confirmed that the manga would continue, with Miura's friend Kouji Mori doing the writing and Miura's assistants doing the illustrating.
- Extremely Lengthy Creation: Miura spent some 30 years producing Berserk as his all-consuming passion, and died before he was able to finish it.
- Fan Community Nicknames: Berserkers; also occasionally used are Apostle Spawn, The Godfans and The Fans Of The Hawk (the latter two in reference to, respectively, the Godhand and the Band of the Hawk.)
- Fountain of Expies:
- Berserk and its characters have been a significant influence on Japanese fiction, inspiring many a hardcore, brooding badass who takes after the original hundred-man slayer.
- Guts is pretty much the ur-'90s Anti-Hero for Japanese media, so he's got quite a few expies running around in other works. Caim from Drakengard, Artorias from Dark Souls, and Arngrim from Valkyrie Profile are just some of the most blatant examples. Other really notable examples include Father Nier, Siegfried, Goblin Slayer, and seemingly half the bosses in the Dark Souls series.
- Davion from DOTA: Dragon's Blood has armor, wields a Dragonslayer Sword, Has a burning hatred of dragons, and has a Superpowered Evil Side in the form of Slyrak. He even spends his childhood in a military setting, similar to Guts' own.
- Fairy Knight Gawain from Fate/Grand Order: A giant of a (wo)man: check. Associated with black dogs: check. A Superpowered Evil Side: check. Armoured knight: white but check. Favors brute force: check. Main/BFS: check. Literally fated to die a violent death: check.
- Dragon's Dogma's Mercedes Marten: expert swordswoman, leader among her men, badass attitude, dusky complexion... almost sounds like Casca. There's also a Schierke-expy in Selene, a girl-witch who lives in the enchanted woods under the tutelage of an old grandmother figure whose hut is also guarded by rock monsters, and a Zodd-expy in Daimon, a powerful winged demon.
- Verm, the protagonist of Small Saga, pretty much is Guts in a dangerous, but less harsh and dire world. In which he's a mouse. From the cloak and handwraps and BFS (in his case, a human's switchblade) that makes other characters wonder how he can even lift it, to making a Life-or-Limb Decision and severing a part of his body with a broken sword, being an Instant Expert with a prosthetic, striving to take revenge on "gods" who are far far above him in ability, being rather terse and stoic except in battle... One of his lines is "As long as I was swinging my sword at a foe, I didn't have to think". There's also a shot of him riding an owl while holding the Titan Cleaver that's a clear visual reference to Guts riding on Zodd's back. Verm's dark period is not nearly as pronounced or sinister as the Black Swordsman's of course, but eventually learns the same kind of lesson about doing better with friends and allies and contemplates a life without Revenge. Because the Yellow God, and humans in general, aren't Griffith, he's actually able to abandon his quest when he allows himself to realize that he'll never really be able to avenge his brother.
- God Never Said That:
- There were pervasive rumors that writing Berserk gave Miura repeated Creator Breakdowns which required him to take long hiatuses to recover, but there is no official evidence that this is true.
- Tying into the above, many people are under the impression that Miura put off working on Berserk due to him becoming addicted to The Idolmaster. This is a very large extrapolation of comments made by Miura about him playing the games and commenting on internet videos of it with friends.
- Actually involving another series, but which is so frequently cited by Berserk fans that it deserves mention: Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki has cited Berserk as an influence on the Dark Souls video game series in several interviews. In this interview, he acknowledged he is a Berserk fan and that it has greatly influenced the series since the first game. In another interview◊ he gives a Shout-Out, noting that when Art Designer Masanori Waragai showed him his Catarina armor design, he felt reminded of Bazuso from Berserk and thought that old design was appropriate for Siegmeyer's character concept. He also said that the greatsword arts and playstyle in Dark Souls III were inspired by Guts. However, fanon sometimes exaggerates it, with some fans of both Berserk and the Souls games suggesting that Berserk was the primary inspiration of Souls. Miyazaki didn't cite it as the primary inspiration, but mentioned it among other sources of inspiration, including other manga such as Saint Seiya, Devilman, and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, as well as his collection of Tabletop RPGs and Fantasy Literature, the earlier FromSoftware game series King's Field, and the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks.
- Inspiration for the Work: Series creator Kentaro Miura cited the Middle Ages, Hellraiser, The Name of the Rose, The Brothers Grimm, Violence Jack, Guin Saga and other Western and Japanese works as the influences behind Berserk.
- Late Export for You:
- Despite being in publication for over a decade, the manga wasn't given an official English translation until 2003 to concede with the release of the dubbed version of the 1997 anime adaptation.
- Likewise, the Berserk manga arrived in Europe in the mid to late 1990s with translations in French, Italian, European Spanish and German.
- Latin America only got the manga translated in their region until the 2010s and a Latin American Spanish dubbed version of any of the animated adaptations was done at 2022, beginning with Berserk: The Golden Age Arc films.
- Missing Episode: One chapter of the manga (where during his transformation into a Godhand, Griffith meets the Idea of Evil (A.K.A God) who explains its origins and its goals) that should have been in volume 13 was supposedly pulled by Miura because he felt that it revealed too much about the setting at the time; it was later released as supplemental material.
- The Other Darrin: See Berserk: The Golden Age Arc Trivia for how they got new Japanese voice actors for all of the characters who had been in Berserk (1997).
- Outlived Its Creator: On June 7, 2022, over a year after Kentaro Miura's death, it was announced that the series is to be continued with Kouji Mori as writer/supervisor and Miura's assistants as the artists.
- Posthumous Collaboration: While the manga was put on hold for a year after Miura's death, in 2022 it was announced that it would still continue, with Kouji Mori as the writer/supervisor and Miura's assistants as the illustrators.
- Referenced by...: See the Referenced By page.
- Role Reprise: While the voice cast for the Japanese anime was Darrin'd out, the main cast of the English dub returned. Vocal Evolution ensues as Marc Diraison, Kevin T. Collins, and Carrie Keranen, the respective voice actors of Guts, Griffith, and Casca, have gotten at least a decade's worth of additional voice acting experience under their belt.
- Schedule Slip: When Miura was on a roll, chapters came out once a month and new tankobon volumes once or twice a year, but he was notorious for frequently putting the manga on hiatus, which delayed the release schedule by months. Most egregiously, he ended one hiatus to start another one just two months later. These breaks were likely necessary to stave off breakdowns. Still, just look at this chart for how much his releases slowed down after 2000.
- Series Hiatus: Kentaro Miura was about as infamous as Yoshihiro Togashi for his long breaks in the publishing of Berserk, so much that the fact that Guts and his companions were on a boat for years in real time became a meme. There were all sorts of rumors as to why, but no one really knew the reason. Miura was more open about some of the reasons for the later hiatuses, such as his struggle to transition into a fully digital workflow to make it easier to work on the series, as well as trying to pace himself so as to not compromise his health. And with his untimely death on May 6, 2021, followed by the publication of the last chapter he had a hand in on September 10 of that year, the series would be on permanent hiatus until June 7, 2022, when it was announced that the manga would continue under the supervision of Miura's long-time friend and collaborator Kouji Mori.
- Similarly Named Works: This manga coincidentally shares its title with numerous unrelated works, such as a zombie novel by Tim Lebbon, a 1967 B horror movie with Joan Crawford, and a classic arcade game (spelled Berzerk).
- What Could Have Been:
- Back when he was trying to think of a gimmick to make Guts stand out, Miura considered making him the only katana user in a medieval fantasy setting before ultimately hitting upon the idea of the Dragon Slayer.
- As mentioned on previous pages, Berserk could have ended up being a particularly gory yet frequently lighthearted Shōnen manga rather than the grim seinen story we're familiar with. In The Prototype, Guts is a snarky vagabond on a quest to avenge the death of his mother and possibly fight Varna. For more info, go to the The Prototype stub here.
- Word of God: Miura gave interviews in which he sometimes revealed his intention behind events that fans found to be open to interpretation:
- On the symbolism of Guts' BFS: "I think the big sword of Guts, the main character could be some kind of consequence to make readers feel extreme reality."
- On the significance of the Demon Child: "I made the one-eyed child show up to Guts in vol. 1 as a symbol of the 'weakness' which Guts hates. But I also think the child is connected to the image of Griffith (vol. 10-12) in my subconsciousness who lost the freedom of his body because of the horrible torture when he was still young. For this reason, I think I made a setup which the child played a role to accept his spirit when Griffith as a demon king got his new body (vol.21). The story gets much bigger because of this."
- On whether it's supposed to be the Band of the Hawk or Band of the Falcon: "“Falcon” or “Hawk”, both mean [鷹] in Japanese. In some dictionaries, “Falcon ” is translated as [隼(はやぶさ)] but there’s almost no difference. I used "Falcon" from the great name of the “Millennium Falcon" ship in Star Wars."
- On how much time had passed from the end of the Golden Age Arc to where the story was in 2009: "I’d say it’s been 3-4 years, though it’s not been clearly decided."
- Some of Miura's translated interviews include:
- A December 1996 Interview published in the Berserk Illustrations File.
- This interview from DVD 3 of Berserk (1997).
- A September 2000 interview with Yukari Fujimoto, a writer/professor of gender studies and shojo manga, shortly before volume 20 came out.
- An interview Miura did when he won the 2nd Osamu Tezuka Prize in 2002.
- An interview he gave to Davide Castellazzzi, originally published in the Italian magazine Jappamondo n. 3 and reprinted in the issue n. 8 on "Scuola di Fumetto" February 2003.
- A 2009 letter responding to questions from the members of SkullKnight.net.
- Appearing here in Nico Nicholson's Challenging the Manga Dojos.
- A 2016 discussion with Hakusensha President Kazuhiko Torishima, published in Young Animal. First part translated here.
- The interview he gave for the Berserk Official Guide Book: Part 1 and Part 2.
- A December 1996 Interview
- Word of Saint Paul:
- Miura once quoted Susumu Hirasawa as saying "I think Guts' sword represents a penis and the monsters destroyed by it represent women's genitalia."note
- Kouji Mori has been officially given the position of Saint Paul with the Young Animal announcement one year after Miura's death. Because they were such close friends and colleagues, he was the only person with whom Miura shared the full extent of his ideas and plans for the end of Berserk. Mori says that he will only be writing the episodes that he clearly remembers Miura describing to him. It won't be a perfect reconstruction, but he promises to do his best.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Miura said he hadn't even come up with the Band of the Hawk when he drew Guts' confrontation with the Godhand in volume 3, and there were a lot of details that he made up as he went along but which fell into place later. In fact, it fits together so well that it's surprising to learn he didn't plan everything ahead in great detail. A prime example is that the creepy fetus Guts sees in the first three volumes wasn't originally supposed to be Guts and Casca's child, but Miura later realized that this would work really well and made it into an important Recurring Character. Another is that Casca and Guts getting together wasn't predetermined.note
- Write Who You Know: The author partly based the core group of characters in the Band of the Hawk on five of his friends in high school, except for Casca since they didn't have a girl in the group. There was one friend, Mori Kouji (Suicide Island), with whom he had a really complicated relationship, but rather than one of them being Guts and the other Griffith, it was like their roles were always switching back and forth.note He later based Isidro on the child of one of his assistants, who wasn't brave like Isidro but had a similar sense of immodest ambition and looked up to Miura the same way Isidro looks up to Guts, asking him, "What do I do to become like you, Miura-sensei? Tell me the easy way."note
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