10 Ways Berserk Got Better Since The First Chapter - CBR

Kentaro Miura's smash-hit manga series Berserk is a beloved dark fantasy title, a classic seinen adventure starring the "black swordsman" Guts and his few friends and many enemies. The series launched in 1989, and it quickly became a staple of the 1990s and the early to mid-2000s. It has aged so well since then, too.

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Never did the late Kentaro Miura drop the ball with Berserk or even get complacent with it. He continued to push himself to create incredible manga, and his iconic series started off great and continued to get better and better since then. It's a remarkable achievement, and fans can all appreciate the many ways in which Berserk became even more incredible as it progressed.

10 Berserk's Artwork Became Even More Stunning

It seems Kentaro Miura was born to draw, and sure enough, his illustrations in Berserk kept pushing the artistic boundaries of what manga is capable of. Plenty of other series have great art of their own, but Mr. Miura made sure that Berserk always led the pack.

In those early chapters, Berserk looked outstanding with its sheer level of detail, shading, mood, and perspective, and it only got better from there. By the 2000s or so, Berserk had become a visual treat that had to be seen to be believed.

9 Guts Became Better-Rounded As An Antihero

It will take some time for any manga series, even the best-regarded series, to show every facet of a character and give them some depth. Otherwise, things will feel rushed. So, Kentaro Miura started slow by showing protagonist Guts' roughest and most brutal side first, then added more depth over time.

As Berserk continued, fans finally got to see Guts' more human or even sympathetic side, and they realized that he's not just a tough-talking thug. He is a person who's been through a lot, and despite all that, he has his gentle side to balance it all out.

8 Guts Gained The Berserker Armor

Much later in the series, Guts acquired a special suit of armor, the berserker armor, which improved Berserk's story in two different ways. First of all, this armor enhanced Guts' combat abilities and turned him into a total beast in combat, not unlike biju cloak Naruto or Ichigo's inner Hollow.

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This armor also smartly symbolized the price of Guts' determination to protect Casca and destroy all his enemies. He turned himself into a monster to get revenge on Griffith, but if he lets that darkness consume him, it is all for nothing, and that armor only makes it worse. It's a cool evolution of Guts' arc.

7 Berserk Added More Humor

For the most part, Berserk is just as dark and serious as everyone thinks it is, and the series knows better than to ruin the most important scenes with moments of forced comedy. But when the time was right, Berserk found time to add more humor to bolster the series' charm.

Once the tone was established, Berserk had the opportunity to ease the tension with goofy antics from Puck, Isidro, and even Casca, and the art would often become cartoony to match. Puck also became oddly fond of pop culture references, especially Star Wars.

6 Berserk Kept Building Its World

Some anime series stick to a single setting, such as most slice-of-life anime series, but fantasy anime tends to focus on worldbuilding, almost like an epic-scale D&D campaign. Sure enough, Berserk steadily expanded the scope of its setting, often hinting at or portraying far-off realms like the Kushan Empire and Elfheim.

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The worldbuilding never reached Lord of the Rings levels, but it didn't have to. For Berserk's own purposes, the worldbuilding did a fine job showing how huge and diverse this setting can be, and by now, fans can draw their own maps to keep track of everything if they so choose.

5 Berserk Deepened Its Combat System Over Time

Most shonen and seinen action series will add more elements to their combat system to keep it feeling fresh, from awakening Quirks in My Hero Academia to new elements of Naruto jutsu. Berserk did the same, but with a dark fantasy twist.

At first, the combat system mostly involved knights, soldiers, and basic apostles clashing. Later, Berserk upped the ante with full-blown magical spells courtesy of Schierke, not to mention fire and air spirits to enhance Serpico and Isidro's own fighting styles.

4 Berserk Added More Monsters

If the heroes gain new powers and abilities, then Berserk's monsters have to keep up, which they do. Soon, the series added all kinds of cool creatures or boss fights for Guts to face, such as hordes of trolls, nature golems, sea beasts known as makara, and more. At one point, a giant hydra appears, too.

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That's a pretty cool development, and it's not just to raise the stakes in combat. The gradual arrival of so many monsters represents how the border between the mortal and astral worlds is dissolving, and strange fantasy creatures are quickly becoming the norm. In fact, the whole world is changing.

3 Berserk's Boss Fights Became Even Better

Many shonen and seinen story arcs end with a boss fight, and Berserk is also like that. The Black Swordsman arc ended with the Guts vs. the Count battle, but later arcs had even better bosses. In the Conviction arc, for example, Guts went up against the mighty Father Mozgus and his winged minions, and the next story arc was even better.

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Guts faced a Kushan sorcerer who could summon sea monsters and elementals in a protracted boss fight, and later still, Guts even faced the Sea God itself. Elsewhere, Griffith faced a massive twice-reincarnated Emperor Ganishka in a boss battle of the ages.

2 An Amazing Love Triangle Took Form

Plenty of manga and anime series develop a love triangle over time, but none of them do it better than Berserk does. Early chapters had no romance at all, but partway through the beloved Golden Age story arc, Guts formed such a triangle with Griffith and Casca.

Guts and Casca were meant for each other, and Casca managed to let go of her one-sided feelings for Griffith and move on. Meanwhile, Griffith was essentially in love with Guts himself, explaining his overreaction when Guts left the Band of the Hawk. This triangle eventually became the emotional core of Berserk.

1 Berserk Kept Raising The Stakes

When a story first starts, the stakes are fairly low, such as winning a fistfight, getting into a school club, or obtaining a Quirk. Berserk also started slow, giving Guts tame stakes such as the need to defeat the Count and the snake lord. Eventually, all that looked downright puny in comparison.

Later, Guts had his and Casca's very survival at stake during the Eclipse, and Guts also had his revenge mission to think about. Guts faced even greater stakes when the Kushan Empire muscled in, an army he could never defeat all on his own. By that point, the fate of the entire world was at stake, hence the creation of Falconia.

NEXT: 10 Most Emotional Characters in Berserk