Berserk Volume 27: The Greatest Berserk Volume

Guts is clearly not taking the armor well, with blood coming right out of his face. It seems there’s a low chance he will even make it out alive. But that becomes an after-thought as his opponent turns into a dragon of all things and you have to see this panel for yourself. You wanna know one of the reason’s Millennium Falcon is such a masterpiece, the art is at it’s most detailed and refined.

I can only imagine the time it took to draw this. If I haven’t said it, we need to thank Miura for blessing us, as that is what he accomplished here. A blessing. But as we learned earlier this fighting can’t be good for Guts, so Schierke tries to find a way into his mind. If she doesn’t Guts is not just a dead man walking, but a raging beast. But to do so, she must see Guts, meaning, see Griffith, see whatever you call this.

After plunging through these unfathomable nightmares, Schierke is able to arrive at a place where she can channel Guts soul and make contact with him. And to prove it we get a Farnese and Casca scene eerily similar to when they were trapped with the trolls, and Guts comes to save them, but this time in Berserker armor. And when he takes off the helmet, the art speaks every compliment I wanna pay Miura. This is what a struggler looks like. I see no universe where this panel couldn’t exist.

While Farnese hurts for him, Casca recoils her attacker. And Guts accepts it. The mistress arrives to save Guts and his crew and provide Schierke a proper farewell. Even though her character has been in this manga for a couple of volumes, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed by great sorrow. When a manga accomplishes that, it really speaks volumes. The next chapters mainly do a crafty job of further setting up Griffith. Additionally, his romance with Princess Charlotte is brought back as he uses it like a further chess move. To her, she is being carried away to Neverland. But unlike Jill, she is too far from the trinkles of reality for the terrifying position she’s really in to ever become clear. Sooner or later, as with most things Griffith is apart of, it will all fall apart. Griffith is a man always running from boredom, meaning he runs towards the next thing. She’s the next thing, but tomorrow?

The final chapter of this volume is a triumph on it’s own. I mean, it has art that’s a feast for the eyes and delicately subtle narrative storytelling. For the most part, it’s just our group playing on the beach, but it’s the little moments that count. Such as when Guts puts Schierke’s hat back on her head.

In this gorgeous panel, Miura shows Guts tiredness, growth, and care with one gesture. He is not celebrating like everyone else, he is meditating on everything. And he’s not blood thirsty, he’s quietly happy of what he’s been awarded, a family.

The gesture is a call for the audience to put it together if they have been distracted by the joy of freedom, like the characters. Guts is almost symbolically putting the hat on the reader. This short time in Millennium Falcon really has worked to show how old Guts has become mentally from all the time he has spent hunting Griffith. And him being comforted by the sight of Casca’s happiness is a reminder of that. Things are different now, but he lives for her still. A favorite moment of mine occurs when Farnese asks to study magic from Schierke, making Schierke now a teacher. While I believe Farnese asked this to genuinely study with Schierke, as her behavior has become more straight-forward, I think she also did this as a kind gesture to help Schierke deal with losing her mother. It would be Schierke re-creating her mother’s words for someone else, and so recently afterwards so would it be accurate and articulate, like she never left. The chapter ends with Skull Knight seemingly watching the crew from far off.