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Berserk

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"Berserk" is a short TV series which was released in 1997. Its Director, Naohito Takahashi (Animation Director, Character Designer “Iria”) interestingly chose to play down, as much as possible, the nerdy fantasy aspects of the story, in favor of punching up its underlying emotional and psychological guts.

The story follows the character Guts (Gatsu, if you’re a purest, which isn’t to say that Guts wouldn’t be spelled Ga-Tsu if you were trying to write it in Katakana.) Guts joins up with a group of mercenaries called The Band of the Hawk, which is led by a young man named Griffith (I notice nobody writes his name Gurifyasu.) When Guts and Griffith meet, Guts is besotted by Griffith’s intelligence, beauty and strength. He views Griffith as an angel on earth.

Unfortunately, Griffith is a man consumed with a lust for power, and although he cares for his men, none of his emotions will come between him and his dream of supreme power. Griffith uses and despises himself as he uses whatever power he has over others to further his dream.

In this story, man does not control his fate, instead, fate controls man. Guts is warned many times in foreshadowing events that Griffith’s need for power will destroy them all, but he is unable to do anything because every event is fated to happen.

Guts is the gayest character in all anime. While I enjoy this anime, it is not for everyone. Battles, blood and gore are stand-ins for gay sadomasochistic sex, and the relation is not subtle. Guts bites Griffith’s sword and says, “This is how you use your mouth in a battle,” then the camera shows a close up of blood dripping from Guts’ mouth.
When Guts and Griffith first fight Zodd, Zodd says, with much delight, “Never have I been cut so deeply.”
After the battles Guts and Griffith look into each others eyes, Guts says something like, “Why do you always protect me?” And, because Griffith is messing with Guts’ heart, he responds, “Why do you think?”
A lot of the scenes were so lovey-dovey, I wanted to throw up. Also, I think there were way too many scenes of Guts holding his 16-foot sword between his legs. Many people describe Griffith as gay, but Griffith uses everyone, man, woman, and demon. One time I rented "Kazuna", which is a Gay/Yaoi anime, but when compared to "Berserk" it almost seems straight.