Berserk, the dark fantasy manga by the late Kentaro Miura, still stands as a crowning achievement of the seinen manga world. The story has 364 chapters to its name, divided into five major story arcs, and this beloved franchise has inspired a variety of video games and two different anime series. However, these adaptations don't quite capture the unique magic of Miura's original Berserk manga.
The story of Berserk was adapted into a short anime series in 1997, largely based on the popular Golden Age story arc, and a 2016-17 3D anime covered even more of the story. However, fans widely rejected the latter for multiple reasons. Many Berserk fans may be pining for a defining Berserk anime that can make all fans happy, but that may be simply impossible.
Difficulty In Adapting Berserk's Manga For Everyone
There are inherent challenges to adapting a manga series or light novel series into an anime, from pacing to animation quality and finding suitable voice actors, and Berserk is particularly challenging, as the two existing anime shows already prove. One challenge is the extreme nature of Berserk's content. While Berserk rarely, if ever, stoops to shallow shock value in its chapters, the material is notoriously R-rated, from graphic action scenes to unspeakable acts vividly depicted in the panels, and they are not suitable even for a seinen anime series.
Not even Vinland Saga goes as far as Berserk does, and animators had to edit or remove such content in the two Berserk anime adaptations. This compromise might upset Berserk purists, who know that the series' true impact comes from its unflinching depiction of sheer brutality and darkness. It's the heart of the series, and sanitizing it dilutes what makes Berserk so iconic.
Another issue is that the series is incomplete, and it seems unlikely that Berserk will have a solid ending in the wake of Miura's passing earlier this year. The Golden Age arc is a semi-self-contained story, as the 1997 anime demonstrates, but true fans want more, and they may never see Berserk's ending in one form or another. A new, definitive Berserk anime would be doomed to abruptly end after it adapted all of the original manga's material, and that wouldn't satisfy anyone, especially not first-time fans who got into Berserk through this hypothetical third anime adaptation.
Of course, the animators could always invent their own ending to conclude the anime, but as Game of Thrones and the 2003 version of Fullmetal Alchemist both show, alternate continuations from the original material might not work out to fans' satisfaction. It could be a lose-lose situation for the anime -- either it simply stops, or it makes up a risky ending that may upset or disappoint its many fans.
Preserving the Original Berserk Manga's Art
Most pop culture fans know the phrase "the book was better," and this often applies to the manga industry as well. Manga artists can pour their full talents onto the page and create truly memorable and impactful art, and Kentaro Miura was well-known for this. His technique, timing and attention to detail were all impeccable, easily drawing epic battle scenes, breathtaking scenery, expressive characters and intense emotions in 2D images. This is part of Berserk's appeal, and the 1997 anime fell far short due to the aged animation techniques, while the 2016 anime had iffy visuals by any standard. A third Berserk anime would likely struggle even with a relatively large budget.
Any anime adaptation of Berserk is guaranteed to at least partially lose the magic of the manga's art, and this is something inherent to all manga-to-anime adaptations. Some series are better in manga form than anime form, such as Tite Kubo's Bleach, and Berserk is no different. A hypothetical third anime might dazzle newcomers with cutting-edge visuals, but while purists might be impressed, they won't be truly satisfied, since the original manga's art is the definitive vision of Berserk. Such a hypothetical Berserk anime might never please all fans at once, and would likely ultimately fail to replace the manga as the definitive version of the story.
In light of the manga's plentiful material and the deluxe three-in-one omnibuses being released by Dark Horse, it's clear that Berserk was fated to be a manga-only masterpiece for all time, and it has broad and fresh appeal in that format. In the eyes of some fans, any attempt at animating it once again might even be insulting, so perhaps it's best not to open that can of worms. Besides, there are plenty of other fantasy manga and light novel series open to less controversial and challenging anime adaptations.