Berserk — An Anime/Manga Analysis
Most recently the manga world saw the tragic passing away of Kentaro Miura, the creator of the acclaimed bestselling manga series Berserk. Very few pop media projects fail to achieve the emotional depth in storytelling as Berserk did, which is exactly why comic book and anime fans will mourn the loss of Miura even more, as the series never got completed. But we can be glad that Mr. Miura left behind for us some of the most fascinating arcs in modern storytelling written in the characters of Guts and Griffith–the two primary characters of the story.
Guts is a mercenary, abused as a child by his adopted father, living a lonely existence as an enraged, overpowered killing machine for hire. His weapon is quite literally a gigantic sword which, at first glance, seems too big for him. The world he lives in consists of the fantastical which is almost always overshadowed by horrors of hellish proportions. His world is one of unspeakable atrocities and bleak horizons. Thanks to his traumatized childhood and what it has turned him into, his journey is destined to be lonely and aimless.
Griffith, on the other hand, is the leader of a mercenary group called the Band of the Hawk. He is a supremely skilled swordsman and a cunning tactician, but above all, he is a man possessed with the dream of one day ruling his own kingdom. As war rages in their world, Griffith encounters Guts and is impressed with the lone mercenary’s skills.
Griffith sees enormous potential in Guts. He realizes that Guts’ skills as a warrior could be useful to his dream of acquiring his own kingdom. After challenging Guts to a duel and besting him, Griffith offers Guts a place in his Band of the Hawk. Guts, despite his brooding and cynical nature–the result of childhood betrayal and trauma–slowly bonds with his new comrades; and he also falls in love with Casca, the only female member of the Band.
Aside from Guts’ romance with Casca, we will pay special attention to his relationship with Griffith. The leader of the Bank of the Hawk is noticeably feminine in appearance. In stark contrast to the muscular looks of Guts, Griffith is portrayed with a slender figure and long hair. This is in line with the Japanese trope of portraying the story’s arch antagonist with feminine features. The reason for this may very well be an unconscious insight into mimetic rivalry. The model-obstacle relationship is, after all, very similar to a romantic liaison. This will become more apparent as the story progresses.
Griffith, after defeating Guts in a duel, recruits him and tells him, “you belong to me now.” There is a sharp tension in how Griffith relates to the hero of the story. On one hand, Griffith makes it clear that Guts is a tool in his quest for a kingdom. On the other hand, Griffith confides in Guts more than any other member of the Hawks. On certain occasions, Griffith even risks his life for Guts. Casca is the first to notice this. She, however, grows envious of Guts for this reason.
The road to mimetic escalation is paved with this relationship of attraction and repulsion. Where the road leads will provide eye-opening revelations that relate to man’s descent into the inferno. The Band of the Hawk, thanks to the joint efforts of Griffith and Guts, achieve many heroic feats in war. They single-handedly end the hundred-year war that has been raging in favor of the king of Midland. For achieving victory, Griffith and his fellow commanders are elevated to the rank of nobility.
Griffith’s drive towards a kingdom must be at the expense of his intimate and natural human relationships. Surprisingly this becomes hard for even Griffith himself to fully accept. Soon, Guts makes his intention to leave the Band of the Hawks known to everyone, including Griffith. It is worth noting here that Guts himself is driven by a desire to become Griffith’s equal. The only way Guts reasons that he can be Griffith’s equal is by “attaining something of his own.” Of course, this notion of achieving something of his own isn’t Guts’ original desire but is rather copied from Griffith’s desire. Naturally, this leads to a second duel between the two and this time Guts defeats an overconfident Griffith.
Griffith’s fall is accentuated from here on. Stunned, he is simply unable to comprehend that someone can so easily make him “forget his dream” and then walk away. Accustomed to always having his own way, Griffith is unable to handle this state of being overwhelmed by his rival; as a result of this, he becomes uncharacteristically impulsive. To compensate for the loss of the “romantic” aspect of his rivalry with Guts, Griffith beds the daughter of the king of Midland. And for defiling the royal house and defying the king, he is imprisoned and tortured for an entire year.
One would presume that after suffering barbaric acts of torture, one would lose sight of his rival. But that is rarely the case, as it can be seen in feelings of resentment within ourselves and those around us. Mimesis is like a disease; it is contagious in nature. It would be far more accurate to presume that bitterness and resentment deepen with the suffering that comes as a result of envy and mimetic rivalry. Indeed, Griffith, whilst imprisoned in the “Tower of Rebirth,” sees visions of Guts, which reinforces his mimetic rivalry.
Guts and Casca, upon becoming aware of Griffith’s imprisonment, conduct a rescue operation. They break into the Tower of Rebirth and find out, much to their horror, that Griffith has been reduced to a mere shell of a man. Griffith attempts to choke Guts as soon as he sees him, but he is too weak. The Hawks carry Griffith out of the prison, but little do they know about the horror that awaits them all.
When someone is fully possessed with mimetic envy, that someone is inclined to commit violence in order to satisfy the bloodlust that flows from an ever-increasing hatred. One is inclined to descend into the deepest depths of hell where an unbridled desire to commit mass murder can be found. This brief glimpse of this kind of unlimited hatred can be found be in the diary of one of the Columbine High School shooters who wrote:
“The human race isn’t worth fighting for, only worth killing. Give the Earth back to the animals. They deserve it infinitely more than we do. Nothing means anything anymore.”
In ancient societies, this thirst to commit war against all was checked by the societal institution of ritual human sacrifice.
Griffith could not bear that he has become someone who must rely on the benevolence of his mimetic rival. He is filled with ressentiment–deep-seated hatred which he is unable to manifest in any form, as can be seen in his feeble attempt to force himself upon Casca who, instead of being angered, pities him.
This feeling of being impotent, of being unresponsive in the face of a perceived threat, is another step towards unrestrained murder. And to control this potentiality for extermination, one has to perform ritual human sacrifice. Griffith decides to take the path of sacrifice, but the story’s narrative treats his ritual sacrifice the same as all-out extermination. This is because the narrative is now threading on the boundaries between both myth and reality. Sacrifice is extermination and extermination is sacrifice. There is really very little difference between the two in this modernized world with very little differentiation. This is also why Berserk is very much a modern tale despite its fantasy-medieval setting.
Griffith is confronted with a demonic force known as the God-hand who presents to him the option to achieve his dream, but to achieve his dream he must sacrifice all of the members of the Band of the Hawk. Griffith accepts this offer while reasoning that he has sacrificed too much to step away now. Therefore, in an event known as the eclipse, every member of the Hawks is branded and a massacre ensues. As a result, Griffith becomes more than just a ruler; he becomes supernatural.
The tragic nature of the story is a testament to Kentaro Miura’s struggle in understanding free will and destiny. The late Miura’s questioning of free will should haunt us as well. Do we really have free will in this world filled with unspeakable cruelty, especially with the knowledge that we are controlled by mimesis and other people’s desire?
What happens when we desire what others desire while knowing that no one is really good in this world? Mr. Miura reasoned that there can be no other outcome other than what happened with the Band of the Hawk. The best we can do is to move on no matter what. This flies in the face of an audience that is accustomed to the completion of the hero’s journey. In Twin Peaks, David Lynch, at one time, is forced to end his story by saying that Laura Palmer was killed by her own father. In other words, the hero’s journey is often the same as the tale of vengeance and scapegoats. But Kentaro Miura never allows his protagonist to exact vengeance despite years and years’ worth of narrative in Berserk, and that itself is very revealing.
In Berserk, Violence is never cartoonized. On the contrary, violence in Berserk is traumatizing. That, combined with its breakdown of mimetic rivalry and the tragic nature of the story, can be considered a resolution of sorts. Despite its fantasy setting, Berserk is a story about necessity; it is a tale about human beings enslaved to mimesis–destiny. Berserk is a glimpse at what the world looks like when we are enslaved to nature via the law of mimesis, and far too often its world reminds us of our own. It is very much, like many of Lynch’s movies, a post-Christian gospel against violence and an unconscious clarion call for humanity to transcend necessity for the sake of its survival alone.