Berserk 1-5: War Cryby Anonymous

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June 24, 2002: Berserk is an abridged adaptation of most of the first 13 volumes or so of the popular Japanese comic by Kentaro Miura (whose works include collaborations with the creators of Fist of the North Star, and a few bizarrely nationalistic works, as well). Don't let the first episode fool you. It starts off as seeming to be a mindless, one-dimensional sword-and-sorcery fantasy, with a stereotypical musclebound warrior type going out and killing nameless thugs and monsters. It is much more than that, and after the final episode, you'll feel compelled to come back and watch the first again. Gatts (to use one of the several possible transliterations of his name, which would properly be transliterated to ''Gattsu'') is a warrior, born to an apparantly already dead mother on the battlefield, and raised by mercenaries, the only thing he knows is how to swing his absurdly large sword. He does this well. But not well enough to avoid being defeated by the head of another band of mercenaries, and forced to join them. Through the rest of the series, Gattsu grows to care about more than killing and surviving. This is a show about ONE character, and how he develops. That's right...CHARACTER...DEVELOPMENT. Something lacking in almost all cinema and television, and here you find 20-something episodes of almost nothing BUT. (Well, there's lots of violence, too) All building to an ending you have to see to believe, and see the whole series to understand. (By removing the first few volumes of the comics, they actually increase it's impact, I think) It is amazing. On top of all this, the music is absolutely gorgeous. (Making up for the choppy animation, I suppose) The end theme is a downbeat, simple song (in bizarrely incomprehensible Engrish) which almost always contrasts the climactic moment which the episodes mostly end on. This is one show I'd reccomend not watching until you have all episodes at hand and are able to watch them continuously...it is that engrossing. This is not just good anime, it is good fiction. Highly reccomended.