Welp, just got done with the final episode of Berserk 2016. Ranting ahead.
What a soulless clusterfuck this show was. I put up with it because it was Berserk and I really wanted the see Farnese and Serpico in an adaption. After the first half I couldn't even feel angry about it anymore, just really disappointed that Berserk was being treated like this. They utterly failed at building up the characters and the world they live in. No ambience. Everything was so rushed that you could never soak in what just happened and how it affects our main characters. Just constantly machine gunning dialogue before abruptly moving on to another scene. There was never any priority for those subtle, quiet moments where a lot of the character building lies. Almost every important scene fell completely flat, especially Griffith's rebirth. Lots of inappropriatly used music. And fuck them for putting Casca's rape in the OP. Ugh, so tasteless.
I'm pretty pissed about how they handled Guts. What drew me into Berserk in the first place was Guts' character. Before I started Berserk I thought Guts was just some pissed off edgelord but once I started reading the manga I was surprised by how much he subverted my expectations. His strength and willpower are ridiculous but he still has a very vulnerable side to him. He fights and survives through the most impossible shit but still needs people that he cares about to keep him together. This anime never even established his character properly, they only focused on trying to make him badass with epic music blaring everytime he shows up on screen to tell you how cool he is. Just felt immature and shallow. Ignoring the Black Swordsman arc and Lost Children chapter ruins his future character developement.
And then there's Farnese. I feel a little extra salty about how she was treated because she's pretty much my favorite character in the manga. She's very complex and subtle so of fucking course they couldn't do her a damn bit of justice. A lot of the Conviction Arc is supposed to focus on HER conviction. The anime skims and compresses her scenes to the point of becoming nonsense. Her zealotry, her fascination with Guts, and ultimate descision to run away from the church to follow him are virtually without context.
I can't really say anything about the visuals and pacing that no one else hasn't already. It's fucking ugly and the direction was horrendous. A handful of nice looking 2D still shots but most of the 2D animation was just as trash as the 3D. The stupid character models can't emote for shit. It's hard to tell what is happening a lot of the time.
The only good things to come out of this mess are the Susumu Hirasawa tracks, even though they were never utilized correctly, and decent enough voice actors for the main characters. They announced a season 2, and unfortunatly I'm still going to make myself watch it. I just hope someday a competent studio will create a cohesive adaptation from the beginning.
