Berserk has always been about more than just a guy with an impossibly large sword; it is also about horrific trauma and the road to recovery from it. That road is never an easy one because Kentaro Miura wanted his characters to feel real, and that meant making recovery as important to the story as the initial trauma.

During a 2019 interview, Kentaro Miura discussed the moment in Volume 40 when Casca, after being in a semi-vegetative state for much of the series’ run, had her memories and mental state restored. It is a great victory for Guts, but it also symbolizes the start – not the end – of Casca’s journey toward recovery. “I was deeply moved [by this moment],” Miura explained. “However, Casca’s real struggle starts now. For Casca to truly recover, she has to analyze and understand her own experiences and resolve them herself. She has to confront what Griffith and the demons did.”

The fact that Casca didn’t immediately return to her previous state and embrace Guts, who had worked hard to protect her across the journey to Elfhelm, was shocking to many fans but was very in keeping with how Miura approaches writing trauma and conflict. “Since I’m depicting human beings, that’s how it ends up. If I don’t properly portray how humans would react in situations like this, it won’t become a compelling story.”

Nearly 40 years after it first debuted, Berserk remains one of the most popular manga. It isn’t just how wonderfully detailed Kentaro Miura’s artwork is or how cool Guts’ design is that keeps readers coming back. It is how flawed and real the characters feel. And that means letting them take their time to recover.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

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