Highlights

• Kentaro Miura's “Berserk” is a universally acclaimed manga known for its story, characters, art, themes, and worldbuilding.
• Despite multiple anime adaptations, none have fully captured the essence of what makes “Berserk” a legendary manga.
• Adapting “Berserk” to anime faces challenges in translating Miura’s intricate art style and mature themes while maintaining the essence of the story.

Lists or rankings of the greatest manga of all time usually have a few titles in common, and the main one is probably none other than the late Kentaro Miura. Furious. A dark fantasy epic rendered with incredible precision and elegance, Furious received near-universal acclaim for its story, characters, art, themes, and world-building.

Over the three decades since the manga began serialization, there have been three separate anime adaptations, including the 1997 anime, the Golden Age Arc film trilogy, and the ill-fated 2016 series. While each retelling of Guts' story has its fair share of pros and cons, the prevailing opinion is that none of them fully capture the essence of what makes Furious one of the greatest mangas of all time. So will the day ever come when Miura's masterpiece gets the anime adaptation it deserves?

Honoring the unparalleled legacy of Kentaro Miura

Kentaro Miura is widely acclaimed as one of the most talented manga artists in history, and his untimely death in May 2021 struck a heartbreaking chord in the hearts of all those whose lives were changed by his work. After having dedicated more than three decades of his life to FuriousMiura's death cemented the fact that his masterpiece would never truly be completed by his own hands, bringing his version of the manga to a tragic end.

Since then, production of the manga has been taken over by Kouji Mori — a close friend of Miura — alongside Studio Gaga, a group of artists who worked on Duranki, another project previously led by Miura. Needless to say, this team has faced an immense level of pressure to maintain Miura's standards and see Furious until the end, and similar expectations were placed on the anime adaptations of the series.

While Miura may not have been heavily involved in the previous anime adaptations of Furious, the current prospect of making a new production of this story is an even more difficult task, given everything that has happened to the series in recent years. Any anime retelling of Furious that doesn't do justice to his work would just be another addition to the graveyard of past adaptations that failed to make the cut. This adds another layer of pressure, since previous attempts to bring Furious to the screens have always fallen short.

What went wrong in previous adaptations

A key indicator of the folly of past adaptations can be seen in the way Furious (1997) is still by some distance the best introduction to the series through anime. Despite its abundant still frames and outdated animation, this production—executed by Oriental Light and Magic under the direction of Naohito Takahashi—captured the soul of Berserk Golden Age Arc better than any of its successors. That said, the series did make concessions in terms of censorship and eliminating the supernatural elements of the story.

Next up, the Golden Age film trilogy (2012–2013) by Toshiyuki Kubooka and Studio 4°C is an updated version of the story, featuring higher quality animation and a more modern art style. At first glance, these films do well to replicate some of the Berserk dynamic battles and action sequences, but the constraints on their respective runtimes forced the story to be heavily condensed. This led to the omission of a number of important character moments and plot elements that had great significance and would become relevant later.

Finally, there is not much to say aboutFurious (2016), given the unanimously poor reception it has received over the years. Shin Itagaki, Liden Films, GEMBA and Milleensee's attempt to create a fully 3DCG-based version Berserk Conviction and Falcon of the Millenium Empire Arcs were as poorly planned as they were executed. The many criticisms leveled at this production have made it a poster child for “what not to do” when adapting an acclaimed manga, and that’s quite disheartening when you consider all the talent involved in the project.

The challenges of adapting Berserk

Among the biggest obstacles currently preventing an ideal anime adaptation of Furious, is the task of translating Miura's art style from manga to anime. Miura's hand-drawn art made heavy use of traditional ink rendering and hatching techniques to create deep shadows, varied textures, detailed backgrounds, and layered frames.

After he switched to drawing the manga digitally years later, there was a notable change in his aesthetic, although the vast majority of Furious before this change it was still drawn with pen and ink. Furthermore, Miura's use of panels and action lines to convey movement, momentum, and emotion has yielded some incredibly iconic manga panels, and it would be a gargantuan task to replicate their quality in a different medium.

Even for a manga, Furious incorporates a considerable amount of blood, violence, and very mature themes into its narrative, far exceeding what most R-rated media franchises would typically have in their repertoire. While such content may be difficult for some readers to digest, it is important to note that the series never stoops to the level of exploiting these elements for shock value.

However, the problem with toning down parts of the series for the anime medium is that it can dilute the dark, morally grey essence of the story. Die-hard fans of the manga would argue that Furious shines brightest because of its brutally honest depiction of the harsh realities of its world – and they are more than justified in adhering to that belief.

Unfortunately, it would also not be feasible to adapt the series without cutting down on its most unpleasant parts, since no distribution platform would be able to justify hosting it. Furious in its full and uncensored glory. In view of this, Furious It's not a simple or straightforward story by any means. For starters, the manga begins near the middle of the chronological narrative, before jumping into a lengthy flashback that gives more context to the connections between the main cast.

Furthermore, the story presents considerable changes in pacing, with some segments moving at a frenetic pace, while others require more time to breathe. Such contrasts are far from ideal for an anime adaptation, which would benefit from consistent ups and downs in its pacing. These are just some of the major obstacles that any future adaptation of the Furious will have to face.

Is there a reason to be optimistic?

With the end of the manga in sight, the future looks somewhat promising for the franchise, even after the tragedy that befell its creator not long ago. On a similar note, there seem to be some collectives that are still interested and willing to take the risk of adapting parts of the Furious, if not all. One example can be seen in an ambitious fan animation project by a group known as Studio Eclypse, which is currently working on an adaptation of the Black Swordsman Arc.

While it's heartening to see the series' fanbase stepping up to produce an undertaking of this scale, we can only hope it fares better than previous forays into the almost Sisyphean adventure of adapting Furious. Perhaps when the manga is finally finished, there may be good reasons to consider a new adaptation of the series, but it also wouldn't be too surprising if Furious remains forever a story that is best enjoyed in its original form.

Furious is available for streaming on Netflix.