Berserk is among the longest-running manga in the world. The series began in the late 1980s and has been inspiring fans ever since with its rich characters, twisting plot, and bloody brand of gore-slicked combat.
Considered one of the best horror series around, part of the reason for its success is that Berserk has some truly horrifying enemies. The main character, Guts, fights demons called apostles, hunting the very monsters who prey on humanity. Meanwhile, Guts is himself hunted, magically branded with a mark that attracts demons and spirits to him. Destiny itself conspires against the hero, but Guts is more than willing to spit in destiny's eye. Here are the ten most horrifying enemies in Berserk, ranked.
10 The Count
One of the first enemies encountered in the manga, the Count was a human who committed his life to hunting down Heretics, only to return home one day and find his wife engaged in a ritual orgy as part of a Heretical ceremony. He killed her and used a behelit to change into an apostle.
In his new demon form, he became a huge monstrous slug. If someone managed to hurt him, he would actually heal stronger than he was before the injury. In the anime, he only had a brief appearance, but one where he killed the character Pippin, making the conflict between him and Guts all the more personal.
9 Gennon
One of the purely human enemies on this list, Gennon's proof that sometimes humanity is darker than the literal forces of evil. He was a governor in the Kingdom of Chuder who was tasked with protecting the capital. The elderly man also had a bevy of young children who served him, their hands shaking with fear and eyes averted as they poured his drinks. They were all too familiar with his predatory appetites.
The mercenary captain Griffith slept with Gennon early in his career while still barely a teenager, prostituting himself out to the older man in exchange for funds to help his mercenary troupe. Gennon seemed unaware of the trauma inflicted upon his victims and that his status shielded him from anyone confronting him.
8 Wyald
Wyald was the ultimate manifestation of unrestrained Id, a ravenous humanoid manifestation of the Pleasure Principle who gleefully destroyed countless lives and inflicted every imaginable cruelty on others for the sake of indulging his insatiable appetites.
Wyald (whose name should probably be Anglicized as "Wild") was an apostle. He was also the leader of Midland's Black Dog Knights, a band of soldiers comprised of violent criminals press-ganged into service for their crimes. Wyald and his men mixed violence and lust as they got off brutalizing their victims. Considering his ability to transform into a giant monster, he was probably the scariest foe ever to attack the Band of the Hawk prior to the Eclipse.
7 Trolls
The trolls were one of the fantasy creatures introduced into Berserk when the veil between the physical and incorporeal worlds began to grow thin. These violent forest-dwelling creatures attacked remote human villages. They were notoriously hard to kill and despite their animal-like stature, demonstrated a crude mastery of tools.
The trolls killed people and carried off human women, breeding with those they abducted--an act that killed their already-traumatized victims. Another reason these monsters were so horrific was that there were so many of them. One troll was tough but manageable. An army of the monsters could threaten all of humanity.
6 Demon Child
This half-human apostle was the child of Guts and Caska. It was polluted by Griffith's demonic seed when he attacked Caska during the Eclipse. In short, it was a living miscarriage, a fetal demon that followed its parents around, stalking them and haunting their dreams.
While lots of horror series have monsters inspired by the universal truth that children are creepy, few go so far as to have a man chased by the demonic fetus from a failed relationship. The Demon Child was eventually sacrificed in a ritual to bring back one of the greatest villains in the series, Griffith.
5 Mozgus and His Disciples
Berserk's creator Kentaro Miura is not always subtle about his views. In this particularly heavy-handed metaphor, he seemed to be saying that one of the world's greatest evils is organized religion. Father Mozgus was part of the Holy See, Berserk's interpretation of the medieval Catholic Church. To demonstrate his compassion, Mozgus adopted various people with disfiguring medical deformities to serve him doing God's work. In this case, the work in question was torturing people.
Mozgus was a fundamentalist, cruelly savaging people for crimes such as poverty or lack of faith. He inflicted real suffering on real people because of his beliefs in intangible concepts. Eventually, all the pain of his victims manifested into a demonic goo of sentient suffering, while he and his disciples were transformed into the forms of angels. But appearances aren't everything, and as fans of the series know, in Berserk to serve God is to serve the Idea of Evil.
4 The Beast of Darkness
The protagonist of the series, Guts, has endured a lot over the years. He has suffered grievous wounds as a soldier and he has shared the gift of suffering with others. Eventually, after losing his arm, his eye, and everyone he loves, Guts had a psychotic break. He became a rage-fueled murderous crusader called the Black Swordsman, launching a one-man war against the apostles.
After a while, his rage cooled. His mission did not end but he was no longer consumed by hate. However, that hate still manifested from time to time as the Beast of Darkness, a sentient canine entity that was the embodiment that took over his mind and body, driving him to lash out at all around him. After all, what's scarier than losing all control?
3 Void
Apostles are humans who become demons, while the five members of the Godhand are more akin to angels, evil beings of unlimited power and abilities who assert their dark influence on the world. As the leader of the Godhand, Void is the most powerful and terrifying of the demonic beings in the world of Berserk.
Beyond his power, there is just that eery unnerving appearance. Look at him! His eyes are sewn shut, his flayed lips peeled back, and his swollen brain is exposed. He's gaunt and skeletal as the Grim Reaper. Truly, this is the face of evil!
2 Griffith
Griffith was Guts's best friend when they were both in the Band of the Hawk. Then Griffith betrayed the Hawks, sacrificing them to become the fifth and final member of the Godhand, taking the name Femto. While Griffith was physically beautiful, his passions drove him to betray everyone who loved him, which was what makes him so horrifying.
Eventually, Griffith returned to a human form, but he still gathered demons to him, rallying an army of them while inspiring the nation of Midland to flock to him around a message of false hope. Given what happened to the last group to follow him, this can't end well.
1 God
Whether one wants to call this entity God or not is a personal preference, but Kentaro Miura clearly intended this being to be the closest thing the world of Berserk has to God. It's also known as the Idea of Evil, a perfect conception of the Platonic Idea that exists in every person's mind. Humans feared this being, worshiped it, sacrificed to it, and ultimately ended up creating it.
The Godhand served the Idea of Evil, five angels who oversaw the human world and who turned some humans into demonic apostles with the help of behelits. All that was demanded was a sacrifice of something the people loved. If God is evil, what does that say about the world?