Both the anime and the manga of Berserk are notoriously violent. The protagonist, Guts, fights against inhuman monstrosities called Apostles — beings who were once human but sacrificed someone they loved to gain supernatural capabilities. Using his massive greatsword, Guts cuts a bloody swathe through humans and Apostles alike.
It is worth noting that many of the greatest villains of the series are actually human. This is particularly true of many characters that Guts encounters during the Golden Age Arc. While technically human, these people are responsible for inhumane actions. The examples below are just some of the truly monstrous humans in Berserk.
Please be warned, there are descriptions of extreme violence below (including violence against children), as these actions are specifically part of what makes the characters so monstrous.
10 Gambino Abuses & Tries To Murder Guts
Guts’ mother was hanged while she was pregnant. Though dead, she happens to give birth just as a mercenary company is passing by on the road. The head of the mercenaries is Gambino, and his lover — who just lost a child of her own — adopts this newborn baby. When she dies, it is left to Gambino to raise the boy.
Gambino hates Guts and tries repeatedly to get the boy killed. He forces Guts to learn sword-fighting and makes the boy fight in the frontlines. On the night after Guts’ first battle, he pimps Guts out to another mercenary. Years later, he tries to murder Guts in a drunken rage.
9 Count Julius Is A Classist Abuser Who Tries To Murder Griffith For Being A Peasant
The brother of the King of Midland is Count Julius. He is a cruel and petty man who disdains commoners. When Griffith, the head of the Band of the Hawk, is knighted for leading his mercenaries into victory time and again, Julius tries to have Griffith assassinated.
In retaliation, Griffith sends Guts to kill Julius. While spying on the count, Guts witnesses him abusing and berating his son in a similar way to how Gambino used to treat him. He kills Julius, but tragically, also kills the boy in his attempt to escape.
8 Adon Coborlwitz Wanted To Cut The Limbs Off Casca To Turn Her Into A Personal Slave Who Couldn't Escape
The century-long war between Chuder and Midland had terrible people on both sides. One of the leaders from Chuder, Adon, is buffoonish enough that he can be dismissed as a mere comic relief character, but he is actually far worse.
He is a coward who stabs people in the back and poisons his weapons, but that is just the start of his cruelty. When he encounters the female captain of the Hawks, Casca, he threatens to cut off her arms and legs but keep her alive for him to continue to abuse for years to come. That is truly harrowing!
7 King Of Midland Ordered Thousands To Their Deaths Due To His Feelings For His Daughter
The King of Midland is not that bad a guy at first glance. Compared to most of the other nobles, he is practically a saint. He knights Griffith, a mere commoner, and eventually promotes Griffith and all of the captains of the Band of the Hawk to become full members of the nobility.
However, it is eventually revealed that he has inappropriate feelings for his daughter, Princess Charlotte, whom he tries to assault. Furthermore, his feelings for her are the reason he did not offer her in marriage as a way to end the war against the rival nation of Chuder. Political marriages were common in feudal times and could be used to end conflicts between nations. The king sent tens of thousands of people to their deaths and to kill tens of thousands more because he had inappropriate feelings for his daughter.
6 Midland’s Torturer Has Dedicated His Life To Torturing People
This character is only identified on the Berserk wiki as the “Tower of Rebirth Jailer.” He never gets a name, but he is unforgettable nonetheless.
After the king imprisons Griffith for treason, this small hunchbacked man dedicates an entire year to inflicting suffering on the former leader of the Hawks. He cuts out Griffith’s tongue, slashes his tendons, burns and mutilates him, and even makes a souvenir from a severed part of Griffith’s body.
5 Lady Farnese Gets Off On Burning People To Death
While there are plenty of other examples of terrible people from the Golden Age Arc and the war between Chuder and Midland, one example from later in the series is Lady Farnese. A true sadist, Farnese joined the church so that she could burn people alive. She quite literally takes pleasure from watching, hearing, and smelling human beings being burned at the stake, and built her entire career around it.
Later, she changes course, traveling with Guts to seek redemption and she even begins studying magic to become a witch (ironic as this is). Still, there is no getting around what she used to do.
4 Mozgus Tortures People In The Name Of His God
Another member of the Holy See, Mozgus was a religious fanatic. One moment, he would seem calm as he spoke of his reverence for his god; the next, he would fly into a temper, ordering people to be brutally tortured to death. His preferred method was to break them on the wheel and leave them for others to see.
Mozgus was so monstrous he and his followers quite literally turned into monsters, albeit ones that looked like angels (a not-so-subtle metaphor about the true nature versus the appearance of many church leaders). While monstrous, he was never an Apostle.
3 Captain Bonebeard Trafficks Children & Commits Various Acts Of Piracy
This pirate captain is a true terror and is first introduced when he and his crew are trafficking children. This was their attempt to become legitimate businessmen after a life of crime on the high seas. That enslaving children was his idea of redemption should say all that needs to be said about him.
Unfortunately, Bonebeard comes back a few times, getting worse and worse. Eventually, he is turned into an extension of a sea god, another monstrous human who becomes a real monster (albeit not an Apostle).
2 The Bakiraka Are Brutal Assassins Serving An Evil Monarch
This is another complex example of a villain (or in this case, a group of villains) who eventually seeks redemption. The Bakiraka are a clan of assassins within the Kushan Empire. To atone for sins of their past, the clan have committed themselves to serve the will of their god-emperor, Ganishka.
Clearly, an entire clan of people should not be lumped together as evil, but those members of the Bakiraka depicted within the series repeatedly commit assassinations and brutal killings specifically to redeem their clan. After seeing the black magic and murderous breeding experiments that Ganishka has enacted, they turn their back on their former master, but there is no denying the damage they had already done, murdering countless people to further an evil monarch's imperial expansion and domination.
1 Governor Gennon Abuses & Enslaves Children
To return to the Golden Age Arc and the Hundred Years War one last time, it is worth looking at Governor Gennon. He is a pederast and the commander of Chuder’s fortified base, Castle Doldrey.
Gennon once paid Griffith for sex, helping to fund the Band of the Hawk as part of this exchange. Since then, he has risen in power, acquiring child slaves to serve him. He has also cost many men their lives by ordering them to capture Griffith. Gennon even convinces himself that this is an act of love, rather than one of abuse. With his death, the war against Chuder comes to an end.