Berserk

I need to get this out there; This show IS good, but you need to get used to the animation. It is not as horrid as some people say, it's more of a hate/love thing in accepting the fact that it IS 3D with some frame rate issues. Quite frankly, once I decided to watch it no matter what, the 3D didn't really bother me too much. I was more interested in continuing Guts' adventures than nitpicking the animation apart.

Don't misunderstand me, I've no idea why they simply didn't do a good 2D animation on this and continued the 1997 story straight off the bat, and as such it is a flawed product. But definitely not flawed enough to deserve being called 'ruined'. That's childish.

This show continues the story of Berserk and is definitely for people who've seen the original 1997 animated series. It's dark, grim and surprisingly funny for such as dystopian tale. Guts slaughtering his way through mounds of enemies and facing all sorts of impossible challenges, all the while having to watch 'weaker' people die around him, is exactly what I wanted, and exactly what I got.

Looking forward to season 2! (Though seriously, whoever made this, considering improving your 3D drastically or switch over to 2D.)

I love the classic and I love the manga. I heard so much about how bad and disappointing this adaptation was but didn't start watching until recently. First, the source material is very deep and hard to mess up. Second, The storyline works as a good follow up to the old anime. Third and most importantly, The animation just sucks and you'll have to get over it to enjoy it. The main problem is they tried a form of animation that does not blend with anime. The flashback scenes are in the classic anime style and look amazing. Possibly better than the original. The computer generated stuff has its moments of glory. The problem is when they try to use this new animation while maintaining an anime feel. Spoiler! Experiment fail. This 3-D CGI effect does not work with classic anime. That's the whole issue. If you can get past the fact that the animation is going to suck most of the time, you might just enjoy this spectacular storyline.

I decided to watch Berserk 2016, and oh my God, what did I just watch? Let me start with the elephant in the room: the visuals.

The visuals are jarring at best and flat out disgusting at worst. The use of CG didn't pay off at all. People complained about Sailor Moon Crystal's use of CG, but even that was leagues better than any of the visuals I saw in Berserk. The animation was just as bad, as the characters didn't move smoothly and felt clunky overall. But to make it worse is the direction of the camera, it was disorienting, sloppy, and caused me to lose track of what the hell was even happening. Makes me question if the director knows anything about the basic rules of film making.

Now, I do understand why they went with CG, as they wanted to try and replicate all the little details, but even so, it was clear that the people beyond the animation had little to no experience with 3D modeling/animation. I have seen better cutscenes on the PS2 than this.

The story to me wasn't that bad, but nothing that special either.

Overall, the story is okay, but the visuals were trash. The first two season of Sailor Moon Crystal were also trash, but got significantly better at season three. Hopefully the same can happen with Berserk.

I was hesitant to watch this because of how bad of a reputation the series has due to the horrible animation. Truthfully it is still worth the watch. The animation has its moments where it shines, but it had tough shoes to fill considering 97' and the manga is highly regarded as the best of the best.

All other aspects of this series is great. They pulled all the right material. Pacing was steady in terms of lore and action. The score was exciting and season 2's opener is a contender to one of my favorite anime openers of all time. Again, the only true flaw is the animation.

My only other recommendation would be to make sure you watch 97' prior to this series.

This in an awful, low-budget adaptation made by a team that I can only assume has no idea what it's doing. It all but makes a mockery of Miura's fantastic manga art. It also lacks the great soundtrack of the 1997 adaptation.

The animation is truly awful, with the human characters moving stiffly and awkwardly. The cinematography is atrocious. The camera is constantly, unnecessarily panning, the shot selection is puzzling, the rule of 180 is consistently ignored. Typical action scenes in Berserk feature the camera swooping through the scene and rapidly cutting and repositioning for no good reason while your eye struggles to follow the action. There are several shots in which it is literally impossible to discern what's taking place. In addition to this, the art is incredibly bland, featuring unfinished-looking CGI that looks like it belongs in a cutscene of a Final Fantasy game from the '90s.

I can only assume that such an adaptation was made by a team with a very low budget and very little experience in crafting a visual narrative. To top it off, the soundtrack is putridly stereotypical, featuring generic heavy metal that only goes further in proving this team was consistently shooting to make something that looks "cool" rather than putting any effort in telling a compelling story.

This is really only worth watching if you're a hardcore fan of the manga, otherwise it's not worth your time. Incredibly disappointing. Hopefully they find a different studio to continue this series rather than just completely canceling it, though after two seasons I'd honestly rather see it cancelled than continued in such a horrible fashion.

2 stars on the strength of the source material alone. If you're interested in Berserk, read the manga instead. This trash isn't worth the time it takes to watch.