Anime fans all over the world were heartbroken at the news that the great mangaka Kentaro Miura had passed away. While he worked on many different series, Miura is best known as the creator of Berserk, which began publication over thirty years ago.

RELATED: Berserk: 10 Best Weapons From Kentaro Miura’s Manga, Ranked

While the series is famous for its gruesome combat and breathtaking art, there is another reason that Berserk gained such widespread acclaim -- its touching emotional moments. In fact, Miura has stated that he draws inspiration from shojo manga, where emotional moments are the core of the story. This is one of the reasons why Berserk has managed to consistently touch many fans' hearts -- both with small happy moments and with tragic ones filled with trauma and loss. After all, there are many ways to touch a person's heart, and some of them leave a scar... or worse.

Please be warned: there will be discussions of graphic content and violence (including violence against children) as these elements are integral parts of this mature series.

10 Guts Was Forced To Cut Down The Undead Little Girl

Guts the Black Swordsman Berserk cutting down a little girl manga

At the start of Berserk, Guts is introduced as a genuinely unlikeable protagonist. He is brutal, cruel, and filled with so much hate that audiences could not sympathize with him.

About halfway through the first volume of the manga, he hitched a ride in a traveling cart with an old priest and his daughter, opening up to them as he enjoyed their hospitality. The girl smiled, offering him wine, which he accepted. This was the first time audiences got to see Guts' softer side. Tragically, the cart was attacked by skeletons, their corpses reanimated by spirits that possessed their bodies. When the girl was killed, she was also possessed and killed her father. Shocked, Guts let her get too close and she stabbed him. Guts cut her body in two just before doubling over, retching and unable to escape memories of the girl smiling just moments before.

9 Guts Idolized Gambino, His Father Figure

panel from berserk

Guts was born from the body of a hanged woman and adopted by a woman named Shizu, who had recently lost her own child. Shizu was the romantic partner of Gambino, the head of a mercenary company. She died a few years later and Gambino became Guts' adoptive father figure.

RELATED: Berserk: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Kentaro Miura's Prototype

The little Guts worshipped this big strong man, idolizing him. Tragically, Gambino was cruel, callous, and abusive. Watching Guts give all of his love and devotion to someone who mistreated him is a gut-wrenching experience for readers, filled with the tenderness of childhood innocence and callousness of adult realities.

8 The Aftermath Of Guts' First Battle Involved Assault & Murder

Berserk's main character, Guts, standing off against his father figure, Gambino

This section deals with upsetting and difficult subject matter. The scene in question is also heavily discussed among fans and was a turning point for Guts' journey.

On the night after his first battle, Gambino pimped Guts out to another mercenary. There were repercussions that shaped his life for years to come. The next day, Gambino denied any knowledge of this. A little while later, Guts murdered the mercenary who had assaulted him. Years later, Gambino drunkenly attacked Guts and confessed to his own complicity. This prompted Guts to kill his adoptive father, then flee from the mercenary band, pursued by the people he had spent his whole life around.

7 Griffith's Talks With Guts Grew Into A Deep Friendship

berserk guts with griffith

Guts eventually joined another mercenary group, the Band of the Hawk. The leader was Griffith, a handsome young man who was as charismatic as he was philosophically brilliant, yet with the battle prowess and tactical genius needed to be a great military leader.

RELATED: Berserk: 10 Human Villains Even Worse Than The Apostles

Griffith developed a close bond with Guts as the two became best friends. While this is not captured in a single moment, time and again, Griffith opened his heart and mind to Guts. These moments where they spoke -- and where Griffith monologued -- were inspiring, touching, and full of warmth.

6 Casca & Guts Bonded In The Cave

Berserk Guts and Casca

One of the saddest and most revelatory turning points in the Golden Age Arc takes place when Guts and his fellow mercenary captain Casca are separated from the rest of the Band of the Hawk. She was feverish and he had been injured. They took refuge in a cave to hide from the rain, and while there, Casca revealed secrets from her past.

She told Guts about how Griffith had rescued her as a little girl, which was why she joined the Hawks. And she revealed one of the extreme personal sacrifices Griffith had made to help secure vital resources for the Hawks. Casca -- who has always been strong-willed, stubborn, and hostile toward Guts -- allowed herself to be vulnerable. This led to the two forming a deep, intimate friendship.

5 Guts Left The Band Of The Hawk & Fought Griffith

Anime Berserk 1997 Guts vs Griffith

Guts was a loner, a man who defined himself through his use of the sword. The Hawks gave him friends and a community, but they also made him complacent, and he needed to find his own way as an individual.

After the Hawks won the decisive victory that ended a century-long war between Midland and Chuder, Guts decided to set out on his own. One by one, he said his goodbyes. However, Griffith would not let him go. In fact, Griffith had harbored romantic feelings for Guts and was heartbroken at this perceived betrayal. Unwilling to let Guts leave, he drew his sword. The two dueled, and Guts easily won, breaking his best friend's sword and heart with a single stroke, yet sparing Griffith from any serious bodily harm.

4 His First Time Getting Intimate With Casca Involved Trauma From The Past

Berserk. Guts and Casca crying

After a year spent soul-searching, Guts returned to the Band of the Hawk when he learned the whole mercenary group had been declared outlaws and were being hunted by the armies of Midland. He saved them from a night raid, then he and Casca had a moment alone together on a wooded clifftop.

RELATED: 10 Anime Friends Who Became Enemies

She attacked him, furious that he had left. She revealed that Griffith, devastated after Guts' departure, committed an act of treason which resulted in his capture and the Hawks being hunted. Guts allowed her to injure him, which ended the battle. Overwhelmed with emotion after a year on the run, she tried to jump from a cliff but he caught her. And then, as he held her, they kissed and began making love. But this triggered a traumatic memory as Guts suddenly had flashbacks to the night after his first battle. Shaking, he told her what he'd suffered. Each allowed themself to be vulnerable, opening their wounds, and then they began to finally heal.

3 The Hawks Attempted To Rescue Griffith, But It Was A Little Too Late

Guts and the Hawks try to resuce Griffith from the Tower of Rebirth in Berserk

For committing treason by seducing Princess Charlotte, Griffith was imprisoned in the Tower of Rebirth, where he was tortured.

The Hawks launched a rescue mission with the princess's help. They hoped that once they had saved their leader, he could help restore the Hawks to their former glory. Instead, the group that infiltrated the tower found a frail broken man, his tendons slashed, his tongue removed, all of his vitality destroyed. Griffith had not yet died, but any hope for a better future was gone.

2 The Eclipse Ended Everything

Berserk. The Eclipse

The Eclipse is one of the most infamous scenes in the history of anime and manga. It is right up there with the moment that Goku became a Super Saiyan in Dragon Ball Z or the motorcycle chase at the start of Akira.

The premise is simple: Griffith made a pact with four supernatural beings, the Godhand, and sacrificed every member of the Band of the Hawk. He underwent a dark apotheosis as his broken body was reborn as Femto, the newest member of the Godhand. The Hawks were torn apart by demons called Apostles. Guts killed as many Apostles as he could but was subdued. Then Femto tortured Casca just to make Guts watch. The two were rescued by another supernatural being known as the Skull Knight. That is a short summary of the events. But the horrific moments that led up to the Eclipse, the tragedy of Griffith's fall, the slaughter of every character who had shared this journey together -- such detail cannot be so easily summarized. In the aftermath, both Guts and Casca were driven mad.

1 Rickert’s Reunion With Griffith Gives Him Closure

Berserk Rickert Griffith manga

In addition to Guts and Casca, one other member of the Hawks survived -- a brilliant and industrious teenaged boy named Rickert. He had not been present for the Eclipse, and so he escaped the devastation.

Guts never told him what had happened, but he figured it out. Then, Griffith was reborn again, not as Femto but as the "Hawk of Light," a messianic being who unified humans and Apostles. Rickert traveled to see his old friend and confront him about what happened. All of their shared history -- the good and the bad -- came to a head, and Rickert finally got the closure he deserved.

NEXT: Berserk: 10 Best Fights In The 90s Anime, Ranked