There is no Paradise for You to escape to [Episode 370]

Mori and Studio Gaga are doing an insane job at carrying on Kentaro Miura’s legacy. Within only a few they chapters we witnessed another significant increase in quality. Studio Gaga will only get even better with time.

This episode is packed with references to the Golden Age, some that may not be visible in plain sight. It shows the aftermath of the destruction of Elfhelm as we know it.

For Guts and crew it must have happened suddenly and unexpectedly. In the perspective of the characters, there was no precedence to this event. There was no prophecy brought to them by an astral being that could have warned them about it. For us readers, we may have anticipated it considering the “Griffith invades Elfhelm” theory.

But Elfhelm’s demise happened for a different, more “innocuous” reason: the Moonlight Boy was yearning for his parents, being drawn towards the island. After spending a peaceful time with his parents, he would shift back to Griffith right in front of them. Only the presence of a Godhand was enough to destroy Elfhelm, or at least to destroy its connection to the physical world (it likely moved to the astral world together with its inhabitants rather than being destroyed completely).

Because Griffith takes away an unconscious Casca, both Guts and Casca go through a very similar experience to the Eclipse, except it is much less graphic: Guts watches helplessly as Griffith takes away the person who is so dear to him and whom he sacrificed so much for. However, this event is enough to trigger the severe PTSD both characters have. For Guts, it drives him into a downwards spiral, feeding doubts to his ability to wield his sword and as a result, protect his loved ones. Casca’s perspective yet has to be depicted.

A Second Golden Age

Newest episodes heavily reference the Golden Age in general. It begins with Guts walking away after Casca gets triggered in episode 360 (a reference to when Guts left the Hawks) and from there they just keep on going.

• Guts stopping his sword while dueling Griffith without harming him. In Episode 368 something similar happens: however, Guts likely did not want to stop his sword and was instead stopped by Neo-Griffith’s supernatural powers.

• During Guts’ departure from the Hawks, Griffith dropped his broken sword, fell down on his knees and seemed in shock. In Episode 370, Guts does something similar.
• Griffith having his way with Casca, making sure Guts is watching during the Eclipse. In Episode 370, he is watching him fall into despair as he holds Casca in his arms and takes off with Zodd.
• Griffith holding a monologue about how Guts made him forget his dream before sacrificing the Hawks. The monologue Guts has in episode 370 is eerily familiar: “Only you… [made me forget my dream]”

These references highlight the severity of the situation. As Morda rightfully points out, if Guts was to use the Berserker Armor in this mental state, hellfire will be brought upon them. Something like this was prophesied by the Beast of Darkness during their Voyage to Elfhelm and we have gotten MUCH closer to this moment now.

At the same time we have statements like Flora’s (“This is the path you’ve chosen. I suppose this is your protection from hellfire”), the fact that astral beings that love and protect humans exist in the astral world (and are also being called for help each time the spell of the Four Cardinal Direction is cast), or the fact that both Schierke and Farnese have grown, learning new abilities during their stay on Elfhelm.

Direction & Art

The devastation in this episode could be felt. The tone is grim, a lot of halftoning was used to set the mood.

I am under the impression the depiction of an desperate atmosphere was handled better than it would have been under Miura. Compared to chapter “Requiem of the Wind” (this is directly before the Eclipse), were the trope or context is similar. When the whole group is together, the action mostly centered around Corkus, Pippin and Judeau.

The only character shown an external or “public” emotional reaction to the general situation that lasted for more than a few panels at all was Corkus. Casca was trying to hide and was shown to emotionally react later after she was confronted with the reality of Griffith being disfigured. The overall mood was more akin to speechlessness, shock and cluelessness.

But no in-depth depiction that the Hawks as whole are devastated, distraught, blaming themselves for their failure. They did their all, clung to a last feeble hope, died, got injured just to be let down eventually. Imagine the situation these people are in! This graveness was only briefly depicted in a few single panels. While the scene was well thought out and orchestrated, this is something that felt it was lacking “emotional substance”, for a lack of a better word. It is difficult to explain, as the difference mostly lays in nuance and I might be picking an unfitting wording to describe it.

In my opinion, this changes with episode 370. Here, the chapter throughout depicts the collective suffering of the Elfhelm’s human inhabitants.

Mori and Studio Gaga created a chapter that feels like Farnese, Schierke and Co. were in the middle of a raging storm of despair. Emotions displayed seem more intricate than in Miura’s work. Particularly Farnese’s emotional reaction to what she has witnessed felt real and genuine. The fact Farnese is comforting Schierke by holding her hand, who is also visibly emotionally shaken, also adds to this. Even Isidro is brought to tears in the face of everything that happened. So while the string of events wasn’t depicted in such detail as, say, when the tower fell during Conviction Arc, the emotional aftermath is shown in richer detail or broader spectrum. Mori and Team are enhancing Berserk in that regard in particular. Miura’s Berserk, while rich in emotion and depth, has always felt a little “mechanic” to me. Emotions were shown, but usually only when it mattered to a character’s development (e.g. Guts’ the Sprint), it wasn’t something that usually “decorated” background interactions. Up until now I considered this a nitpick so I never brought up this impression, but with the new lead I am noticing a not so insignificant difference.

Note that I am in no way trashing on Miura in any shape or form. These are differences that are bound to happen with a change in writers. Berserk stays Berserk even with those differences.

The art has improved extremely compared to their first chapter. I love the depiction of Berserker Armor in one of the pages. If you ever wondered why Guts’ face grew so long during the Sea God fight, I have a tumblr-post from a few years ago that you might enjoy reading. There, I predicted that the Berserker Armor helmet would likely be shortened in newer depictions. However, that possibly indicates that we will likely not see sane Berserker Guts ever again, which is a thought that’s quite concerning in itself.

I notice Studio Gaga are making baby steps towards Miura’s advanced paneling techniques: Miura’s usage of parallelogram-shaped panels is starting to show up in Studio Gaga’s work. Placement of speech bubbles also improved overall, creating a better reading flow. Among the other feedback they received, I pitched Mori the idea via twitter that it is helpful to go back to Miura’s existing work and study his art and paneling for learning purposes. Very happy and grateful to see that they took this kind of advice to heart with visible results. I hope they learned and will learn a lot from it and I wish plenty of good things come their way.

Characters

It appears that Mori is following the same direction as Miura with the character’s development. They do not seem out of character at all, there might be slight differences in the way they are written in detail, however. This might be in part because of the dialog which is not on par with Miura’s, but this is something Mori has told us about before taking over the humongous task to finish Berserk in his friend’s honor.

There are some interesting dynamics going on in the group in this chapter. Because Guts is not present to offer consolation, Morda is taking over that role, reminding Farnese to pay attention what is happening around her and refocusing on healing the people that have been injured. Morda also remarks how it is extremely dangerous to leave Guts alone in his state of mind. She fulfills an essential role in these interactions and I’m surprised how good-natured and attentive she turned out to be, even though she had a little unhinged introduction.

The fact Schierke is resuming her role as emotional support witch might mean that Guts is in acute danger to use the Berserker Armor. Roderick insinuates that more bad things may happen if they don’t get away from Elfhelm soon, so who knows? What I also absolutely love is the fact that Roderick realizes the severity of the situation, looking after his friend, Guts, fiercely knocking on the door telling him not to do anything rash.

The situation that is building up here is extremely dangerous, akin to Golden Age Griffith’s downfall in many aspects. All things considered it has me on the edge of my seat!

I honestly believe that episode 370 is a cliffhanger and episode 371 will depict Casca waking up in Falconia, possibly Charlotte’s chambers, like a princess waking up from her sleep.

Outlook

Considering the strong parallels to the Golden Age, we can construct a few scenarios that may “repeat” in chapters to come.

• Casca and Griffith might be having a similar confrontation as on the Hill of Swords
• Casca can end up up having to run away similarly to how Guts was when he killed Adonis. Reasons might be: getting triggered, realizing who Griffith actually is (Femto) and being terrified of it, pissing off him or his subjects, maybe a bit of everything mentioned
• Casca, as a result from my last point, taking refugee at Luca’s and processing the events that happened at Albion. Potentially, she could figure out that Griffith inhabits the body of her son by herself, or at least will do some work towards figuring this out
• Another confrontation of Casca and Charlotte, paralleling the incident in the Golden Age were Princess Charlotte gives Griffith a knight statue before departing to the Battle of Doldrey
• There might be a Fountain Speech-like scene with Griffith and Casca, with Charlotte being in the eavesdropping position. This entirely depends on whether Casca is able to interact with Griffith and how
• Wyald exposing Griffith as a shadow of his former self in volume 12, except its going to happen to Guts

Thank you for reading. Let me know what you think about this topic in the comments section below!

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