#Berserk 2017

[lordsmaf]

Oh, I see there are some people who are not familiar with the 2016/2017 Berserk anime’s CGI. I am very sorry to have cursed you all with this knowledge.

[memingursa]

As a Berserk fan I think every Jujutsu Kaisen fan bitching about the great animation/different artstyle for the Shibuya arc (which is to make it easier to anime some great/grand fight scenes) needs to kill themselves and go to hell you ungrateful weeaboo shits

[notmerridew]

Guts : ]

[qzu]

the way berserk's reading base is infested with dudebros is insane to me because "among thousands of comrades and ten thousand enemies only you made me forget my dream" being about another man and griffith becoming top 3 most loathed manga characters over the actions taken after said man decides to leave his side

[landoguy75]

[oreoskys]

redrawing a panel from Berserk >>>>>> therapy

[spiderwebx]

[kagrenacs]

I’ve finally chosen to watch Berserk (1997) and I love this intro. It’s so 1997. It’s so jarring knowing what happens for how light hearted it looks. The first few scenes fucked!!

[foxskip]

tag people you want to catch up with/get to know better

tagged by: @pinnithin saw that almost a whole day later b/c tumblr likes not telling me things lolll

last song: Okizeme by exociety (Rav & Kill Bill: The Rapper) NEW ALBUM TOMORROW YAAAY

last film: Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew w/ @bajoranhughculber & @thymedreams like a month ago

current/last read: Started reading One Piece after loving the live action see you in 1000 chapters I guess lol (also keeping up w/ some current comics/manga but I'm not gonna list all those)

currently watching: Jujutsu Kaisen season 2, Gen V, AEW, also slowly making my way through Cowboy Bebop & TMNT 2003

current obsessions: Ninja Turtles but also I can tell I am slowly being consumed by One Piece brainworms already...

tagging: @bajoranhughculber @vaquer0s @zakoa @transedhausen @webvein @pandahasashotgun

[lordsmaf]

Can’t look at this panel without being reminded of... ya know... THAT gif

[thebeardedladyofthelake]

Oh boy I can't wait to show this funky Easter egg I found last week to all my friends at the Eclipse Party!

[bitter69uk]

"I'm like heroin. I have to dole myself out carefully. I don't want people to overload." Angelyne

"If you’re looking for celebrities, the easiest one to find is Angelyne. She started her career by erecting giant billboards of herself in Hollywood (corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue), New York and London, displaying nothing but her likeness and a phone number. Dialing excitedly, I was thrilled that no one answered the first time – the ultimate in Hollywood attitude. Looking like a fifties glamour girl gone berserk, Angelyne drives around town in a hot-pink Corvette, wearing a matching revealing outfit, blowing kisses to anyone who looks her way. She cheerfully responds to all comments, from “We love you, Angelyne!” to “Yo! Sit on my face!” Although she’s making a record, she’s currently famous for absolutely nothing."

/ John Waters from his book of essays Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters (1983) /

Born on this day 73 years ago: eternal grasping starlet, kitsch icon, pop culture oddity, cult figure and enthusiast of the colour pink Angelyne (née Ronia Tamar Goldberg, 2 October 1950. The berserk billboard diva’s origins were always shrouded in mystery until an explosive Hollywood Reporter exposé in 2017). Forget Marina Abramović – the most committed performance artist of the past four decades has been Angelyne.

[deripmaver]

What’s The Point Of Elaine?

There are three eras of Casca in Berserk so far: Golden Age, Elaine, and Revived Casca. I find that within the fandom, Elaine is written off as not particularly worth analysis, that she just represents a transition state between the real Cascas, pre-eclipse and now revived. 

I do in some ways understand this feeling - Miura has said that in developing the story of Berserk, he ultimately decided in keeping Casca alive only because he needed a way to keep Guts’ rage intact, and not let the sands of time dull his need for revenge. This comes from an interview with Miura from 2017, that he spared Casca because she makes sure Guts never forgets the Eclipse. If I may editorialize, though, I think there are narrative reasons to keep a character alive, but that doesn’t mean said character isn’t being independently developed and doesn’t have their own inner world, especially when Miura has said repeatedly he’s trying to write real people and not archetypes. If I may also be snarky for a moment, considering one of my first interactions on Berserk tumblr had someone arguing that Casca stans read too much into Miura’s quote on her recovery to the point where you can’t even really assume he intended to have her recover - perhaps it’s reading too much into this quote to extrapolate that “Casca remained alive to fuel Guts’ anger = Casca as a character is only a plot device for Guts and Miura had no intention of developing her outside of that.”

Another reason to overlook her as a character that I do understand: Elaine is completely voiceless. She literally does not speak except for baby-ish noises from the time after eclipse until chapter 355, practically 275 chapters. For all of that time, we are given no indicating of how Casca is processing the eclipse (or not processing) - and so in some ways Elaine is just a narrative place holder as Kentaro Miura found his footing with her recovery. 

My intention with this post is to show that it is possible to gain a bit of insight into Casca’s feelings and emotions as Elaine from some key moments, even though she is never given a voice. Much like (in my opinion lol but also I’m right) Beast of Darkness is just a facet of Guts’ mind and not a separate being, ditto Femto for Griffith, Elaine is Casca, and she’s being written as Casca, just a shallow and surface level version of her. 

Elaine has these few shining moments where Casca comes through, showing that deep inside her mind, Casca is there, a terrified little sprite shielded by this childish outer shell, hiding from the world. First, when she jumps down the cliff during Conviction Arc:

Next, when she kills the men who attempt to rape her during the Winter’s Journey. 

I won’t post any more panels from that chapter lol. It would be better if there was just... A look into her mind during those moments, just for an instant. What made the actual Casca come through in those moments? How did she feel, suddenly being back in her body, in a world infinitely more terrifying than the one before she regressed? What happened to make her go back in, in her safe little cocoon of Elaine? 

Another moment where Casca comes through just for a moment is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful in the series: 

Casca has run to Griffith on the Hill of Swords. It’s not clear why - perhaps she remembers their closeness before the eclipse, or perhaps she’s being drawn to the moonlight boy, her son, in his body. All of a sudden, the unstable rock wall cracks, sending boulders tumbling towards her, and Guts isn’t close enough to get to her in time...

But Griffith is.

He protects her from the falling rocks, and we get the page posted above. This is the first time Casca has seen Griffith since he raped her during the eclipse. She starts to shake and sweat with him holding her still, her noises becoming terrified. She reaches out to him with a trembling hand, her eyes filling with tears. Her brand lets out a burst of blood, and her trauma and terror overwhelms her, while Griffith stares down at her impassively. Casca is still in there, and being confronted by her rapist again, she is absolutely terrified. This, to me, says so much about Casca in this state. Again, if we only could have gotten a glimpse into her mind at the moment, even if it was through the jumbled confusion of Elaine. I think it would have added so much.

I kept waiting for this scene to happen again with Casca revived, but at this point it hasn’t happened. Even with Casca in Falconia it hasn’t happened. MAYBE ONE DAYYYYYY.

There’s a particular look Casca gets when she’s terrified and dissociated, and that remains constant from the Golden Age, to Elaine, to post-revival. 

I also especially like that second panel, when she first wakes up as Elaine because her first instinct when terrified is to attack and bite Guts. It feels like a very Casca thing to do, and in fact that’s more or less what happens on their first meeting in the Golden Age, just a tragic perversion of it. Also, her expression is so similar to the one she made when she was begging Judeau not to die.

I think it’s worth noting that the impacts of Elaine on Casca are ongoing, and unlike some of the discussion I’ve seen, I don’t think anything that’s happened to her as Elaine will be brushed aside. As Elaine, we’re first introduced to her because she is absolutely terrified of all men, even her companions. 

This is reflected in the corridor of dreams, in my view, with the very unsubtle penis monsters (which I won’t post an image of LOL) - the association of men with sexual violence and sexual assault. Her close companions as Elaine were majority women, and this remained true after her revival. By the time Guts and Casca were reunited in Conviction arc, she seemed to have lost some of her mistrust of men, and him in particular - but of course that didn’t last long.

There’s also this imagery of her in a coffin, which is again reflected in the corridor of dreams.

Finally, and most interestingly, in chapter 372 it was pointed out to me that it seems Casca remembers her ordeal at the Tower of Conviction, and being surrounded by Falconia’s soldiers reminds her of the mob trying to burn her at the stake. 

There’s a lot to say also about Casca and Guts’ relationship and how his assault of her as Elaine impacted it, but I think that’s been discussed elsewhere and better than what I could. My point in writing this is to show that Miura was writing Elaine as Casca, and that there are moments where Casca seems to come to the surface and break through the protective façade. I think it could have only helped to give us just a brief glimpse into her mind in those moments, and it’s a detriment that there was nothing. In looking at the panels of Elaine, I think we can get a sense of where Casca’s recovery might go.

Interestingly, most of the moments I’ve shown here happen from before Farnese and co. join the group, and as the later arcs drag on I feel like Elaine gets goofier and less serious of a character, kind of like chestnut puck. Still, I still hold out hope that with Casca revived, even if she is in Falconia, we’ll start to see her process what happened to her as Elaine - especially if she comes across Luca and the girls, as I’m sure she will. 

Must protecc

[bthump]

so, i’m new to berserk. and i’m just shook at how blatant the homoerotic subtext is? like why did no one tell me about this? I would've read it a lot sooner. I have this very clear memory of me having just read a fanfiction where a guy had just given another guy a blowjob. then I switched off to reading the beginning of the golden age arc, and their duel made me think “this was the gayest shit I’ve ever seen” (much gayer than the literal sex scene that I had just read!!) (1/2)

(2/2) And then it somehow got even queerer as time went on? HOW. The romantic subtext is so obvious that I don’t understand how others can miss it. Pretending these two aren’t down bad for each other is like denying that the sky is blue. No wonder this fandom has such trash takes and bad reading comprehension, they refuse to see the obvious and it’s maddening

lmao yeah if you look at most sites people get information about a canon, like the wiki or tv tropes, you'd never know how gay it is. Even I was totally blindsided by the homoeroticism when I read the manga in 2017, and that was technically a re-read - it's just that the sites where I'd read up on it before diving back in downplayed griffguts so much that I assumed it wasn't nearly as gay as I remembered. And yeah no, turns out it's much gayer.

Glad you checked it out eventually anyway!

[ryuichirou]

what fandoms were you in long before twisted wonderland? I mean like over 10 years ago.

Anon, thank you for this question because it made us sit down and actually look through the albums of my old art and write a list LOL We thought it’d take like 30 minutes tops + 10 minutes to write all of this down, but it took 2+ hours yikes… So sorry, no other replies today :(

And made us realise just how much we revisit certain fandoms 🤦‍♂️ I guess we’re loyal!

Some of them were just very brief phases when we watched/rewatched something, I drew like 5 sketches for this thing and we moved on after about a week. But it was still prominent enough for us to feel like “Oh right, Ryu was drawing (this) back then”. Damn, 2013-2016 were insane, we were jumping around so much… When did these people have time to watch and draw so much shit??

Since this blog is very old, you can find some of my very old shitty fanart for a lot of those here. In all honesty, I really want to draw fanart on some of the more obscure and old ones again… if you have questions about any of this, feel free to ask!

2007: W.I.T.C.H., Oban Star Racers, Naruto lol my very young years

2008: Petshop of Horrors, Yami no Matsuei, Gravitation

2009: Hetalia, Vocaloid

2010: Vocaloid, Terra e…, Shoujo Kakumei Utena, Hetalia

2011: Terra e, Kaze to Ki no Uta, Sound Horizon, Hetalia, Magi (mostly Judal), Kuroshitsuji (a little bit)

2012: Homestuck, Prince of Tennis, Sengoku Basara, Sound Horizon, DC (Batman + Robin, mostly Tim Drake), Thor, Danny Phantom, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, ATLA, Adventure time, D. Gray-Man

2013: Ed Edd n Eddy, Sound Horizon, Penumbra Overture, Lucius, Thor, Hetalia, Dan Vs, Hannibal, Shingeki no Kyojin, Death Note, Bakuman, Neon Genesis Evangelion, South Park, Durarara, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Litchi Hikari Club, Hellsing Ultimate, Yami no Matsuei, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Game of Thrones, Hannibal, the Simpsons

2014: Kuroko no Basket, Hadaka Shitsuji, Hoozuki no Reitetsu, Gravitation, Shingeki no Kyojin, Tytania, Panty&Stocking, Soul Eater, Bleach, Kill la Kill, Hellsing Ultimate, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood,  Ace Attorney (trilogy + Apollo Justice), Priapus (by Mentaiko/Itto lol I drew him a lot), Togainu no Chi, Outlast, Daria, Scooby Doo, Haikyuu, DMMD, Katekyō Hitman Reborn, Tokyo Ghoul, Free, Kuroshitsuji, Psycho-Pass, Yowamushi Pedal (HUGE!!!!!), D. Gray-man, One-Punch Man

2015: Metalocalypse, ATLOK, Gravity Falls, Guns n’ Roses (yeah the band), Hannibal, Steven Universe, View Askewniverse, the Addams family, Ace Attorney Dual Destinies, DMMD, Life is Strange, Over the Garden Wall, Rick & Morty, South Park, Miraculous Ladybug, Undertale, Watchmen

2016: Supernatural, Peanuts, Osomatsu-san, Outlast, Until Dawn, BioShock Infinite, Code Geass, LoTR, Game of Thrones, Hetalia, House MD, Zootopia, Shingeki no Kyojin, D. Gray-man, Hellsing Ultimate, LA Noir, Percy Jackson books, South Park

2017: American Horror Story, Danganronpa, Neon Genesis Evangelion, ATLA, Homestuck, Yuri on Ice (super briefly), Outlast 2, D. Gray-man, DMMD, Hetalia, Gravitation, Monster, Dream Daddy, Junji Ito, Boku no Hero Academia, Osomatsu-san, South Park, Hannibal

2018: Voltron, Danganronpa, Devilman (Crybaby and classic), Homestuck, Berserk, Gravitation, Bungo Stray Dogs (briefly), Gintama, Hellsing Ultimate, Hetalia, BTS, Priapus (he came back), LoTR, Togainu no Chi, Sweet Pool, Detroit Become Human

2019: Tanya Grotter books, Hannibal, Homestuck, D.Gray-man, Hunter x Hunter, Danganronpa, Durarara, ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept., Soul Eater, ATLA, Witcher 3, Shingeki no Kyojin

2020: Shingeki no Kyojin, briefly Uncharted 4 and BioShock Infinite

2021: Shingeki no Kyojin, ATLA, Sk8, Jujutsu Kaisen, Squid Game

2022: The Great Ace Attorney, Sadistic Beauty, Hades, Mirai Nikki (suddenly), Akira, Encanto, the Gray House (the House In Which, it’s a book),  Cowboy Beebop, Fight Club, It (2017), Stranger Things, LoTR, Uncharted, Hetalia, Frozen (more like Hans/Anna lol), Kuroshitsuji, Twisted Wonderland

2023-2024: Mostly Twisted Wonderland, but we also posted some Scott Pilgrim stuff at the very beginning of this year.

I guess this is it. Woah…

[zeldamomoe]

It's FFX-2's NA anniversary and I just had to go back and count how many X-2 Rikku versions I've cosplayed so far… spoiler alert, it's a LOT lmao

Berserker Rikku (made in 2022) 📸my partner Raph (2022), edits by me

Thief Rikku (made in 2016) 📸my partner Raph (2020), edits by me

Songstress Rikku (made by LucioleS Cosplay) 📸BearPhotoBuffalo (2017)

Festivalist Rikku (made by Mimiku Cosplay) 📸Rabbit in the Moon (2018), edits by me

Freelance Rikku (made in 2014) 📸PialVisions (2014)

Psychic Rikku (made in 2009) 📸high school friend (2009)