Friday, July 5, 2019

Berserk's Tendrils of Influence

I've currently read all the volumes of Kentaro Miura's Berserk manga that have officially been translated into English. Aside from the story and art, the series comes with a built-in mini-game: spot the influences. Berserk draws heavily on established visual vocabulary in its character designs:

Mad Max and Guts

The Phantom of the Paradise and Femto

Berserk has also inspired a lot of other media, particularly the games created by FromSoftware:

 Berserk's Mark of Sacrifice and Bloodborne's Hunter rune

 Berserk's corpse-wheel monsters and Dark Souls' corpse-wheel monsters

Berserk's horse demon and Bloodborne's Ludwig the Accursed

Berserk's religious nut armed with a wagon wheel weapon and Bloodborne's Logarius wheel (Logarius is, predictably, a religious nut)

1 comment:

  1. I don't know if it's just me but the first time I read the chapter where Guts goes up the stairs in Volume 2 with his flowing black cape, I got a strong feeling it might have been influenced by Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie. Even Griffith's black armor reminds me of the suit Keaton wore.

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