Berserk - Episode 3 (Review)
By: Mithrandiel
If you haven't caught my earlier reviews of Berserk, you can find them here.
Warning - Spoilers Ahead!
When we last left Guts, he was escaping imprisonment at the hands of Lady Farnese and the Holy Iron Chain Knights. With a topless, enslaved Farnese as hostage, Guts took off from the camp in a hurry with demonic ghosts in hot pursuit. Farnese is unable to see Puck, Guts' fairy companion, due to her "rigid world view", which probably only lends to Guts' supposed madness as she watches him converse with nobody.
They find their way to an abandoned mansion where Guts reveals his true mission: seeking out and destroying demonic beings known as Apostles. His first apostle is a malformed dwarf who enjoys the taste of human flesh and commands a legion of hellish hounds.
During his extended battle with the hounds and apostle, Farnese is shell-shocked. A religious zealot by day, her dedication to her God and her prayers are rendered completely useless in the face of hell-borne monsters.Following Guts' victory over the apostle, Farnese finds herself in constant trouble; first, she is nearly eaten by a possessed horse. Then, as if her spirituality wasn't tested enough, she's actually possessed by an evil spirit that almost gets Guts to tear her in two with his massive broadsword. Luckily she's saved by the break of daylight and is retrieved by her faithful knight, Serpico.The episode wraps up with a return to the kingdom of Midland. The King is on his deathbed as the entire kingdom sees visions of a brilliant white Hawk - an allusion to Griffith and the fabled "Band of the Hawk" that played a key role in Midland's victory over Chuder. Princess Charlotte, still heartbroken over Griffith's ultimate fate of being imprisoned and tortured brutally for over a year, is distraught at the recent visions as the bell-tower rings to indicate the death of the former king. What lies in store for the troubled kingdom of Midland?I know I mentioned that the animation didn't really bother me all that much, but this episode got to me. The hounds didn't look good, the movements during the horse/Farnese scene were very jagged and confusing...there were lots of opportunities for better animation throughout.Farnese as a character is achingly one-dimensional. It got to the point where I was wondering why she was even in the episode at all except as a prop/liability for Guts as she stumbled from one near-death experience to another. What was probably the most annoying was that after all of it she was still insisting that Serpico kill Guts (ha.) - as though she didn't owe him her life several times over.
The strongest point of this episode was some underlying plot movement. We had an idea of Guts' ultimate goal: to get revenge on Griffith for the horrific things he did to his former companions, including Casca. However, this episode shed a bit more light on his other targets, and gave some brief glimpses at how Apostles come to be. The final sequence in Midland is also promising as it harkens a return to where everything got started.Overall, the plot movement helps to compensate for some of the other weaker elements of episode 3. I hope that the animation sharpens up a bit, or at least doesn't rely on such low-grade CG in the future...otherwise it may not hold a very solid grip in my weekly lineup.You can watch Berserk on Crunchyroll every Friday!
