Berserk Volume 4: The Golden Age of Berserk Begins

This is it! The greatest part of Berserk. The Golden Age. Even though it is undeniably the best arc, I would recommend watching the ’97 anime first. It’s generally faithful and makes many well built moments in the manga utterly spellbinding due to a little known soundtrack.

So, volume four. Here, we see Guts, after a traumatic turn of events, end up years later a man with that trauma imbued in his every move. Pretty quickly, he’s noticed by Griffith and Corkus after taking down Bazuo, which leads to Corkus wanting to rob him and sooner than later he’s apart of the Band of the Hawk. I skipped alot of details since there’s too much to cover. There’s a treasure trove of things Miura adds you can examine for what it leads to, but I would care to focus on what’s presented in front of us.

Guts is finally a fully-formed character. The most defining moment for him is the scene with the wolves. He grabs the sword, but without intent yet he kills a wolf trying to attack him. After that, he gets up, a struggler, and fights on. It’s like the world won’t let this broken man die, so he fights on. He struggles for another restless day just to do so. You could be left with nothing, but there’s something beautiful about life that won’t let you move on. That message, and how subtlety it’s conveyed, is masterful. Through my jump in the literary and comic book world, I learned one thing. There are some things you can only do in your medium. Berserk solidifies that further. Never could Berserk work on written-word nor with just pictures.

As said previously, the Band of the Hawk are here kinda and it’s great. While we don’t get much time with this enjoyable group, the interactions will only become more interesting in further volumes. At the moment, Guts becoming apart of the group is pretty much dominates the gist. And it’s fine. We get a funny and insightful fight with Griffith and mere glimpses of the second best character Casca. Don’t worry, the “Bonfire of Dreams” is not that far away (3 more volumes!).

For the artwork, it’s consistent with volume three, meaning Miura is maintaining excellence, but not going further. Miura at his prime is an author always trying to exceed himself. There is always up, a motto I’m sure Miura had written on his wall somewhere. With volume four, he seems to be putting the art progression aside for some striking plot development, which I accept gladly. Trust me, it’s not as bad as it may seem. Berserk is a manga that at it’s worst is better than half of manga at their best. And to be clear, this volume is excellent all around.