BERSERK Revisited - Volume 18

[00:00:00]What's going on, guys? Welcome back to the Berserk Revisited series. And today, we're going to talk about volume 18. And just to clear up any potential confusion, this is not about any new chapters. For anybody that has not been following along since the beginning of the year, I have decided to go back and reread Berserk from the very beginning because I have not done a complete series reread in about 5ish years. It's been a long time and I figured this would be a good video series to give my definitive take on the entire manga so that there is a full comprehensive, you know, video series of all of my opinions, all of my takes, and so that I could say my piece on Berserk as I reread through it. And then also being a revisited series, I can look at it in the full context of the entire story, even up to the newest chapters, and see if that kind of retroactively changes anything that I felt about it before or any kind of information that we didn't really have a full understanding of, if now that we do, and all of that kind of stuff. So, this is just a full comprehensive look at the series. And I'm at volume 18, so we're going to talk about that. And I will say one thing I really love about this part of the story and volume 18 in general is I I guess it's the world building because there's a lot of time taken away from Guts in this volume. But I like that. I I like actually seeing what the other characters are doing, how this world works. We learn a lot more about Mosgus and the Holy Sea. We learn a lot more about all of the refugees and everybody that's hanging around Albon where Kaska is right now. we get introduced to a bunch of other characters like um Acedro, Luca, Nenah, uh some of the torturers we get a little bit more information on. And so uh we get to see that the Kushan is kind of slowly invading here. So there is so much going on around Guts that doesn't really involve his main story or his main directive because he is just thinking I am going to go and get Kaska. I have to find Kaska. um kind of rectify all of this time I spent away from her and just try to do my best to protect her. That's what he's attempting to do while all of this other [ __ ] is going on. It's building up to the incarnation and like I said, the Cushian are invading and we get to learn all of this stuff happening uh with the heretics and the Holy Sea and and everything that's going on not involving Guts to the point where I would be fine if this entire volume didn't even have Guts in it because I I'm just enjoying so much of what's happening. uh just in the world in general. So, we do get the introduction of Eidro where he's stealing from people and then decides to give some of the food back and the food's poisoned. He's stealing from the adults. The one thing that I like is that he kind of cries wolf and says like, "Oh, the cushion are over there. They're coming." And the guys look and then the Cusan are actually there and kill all of them around him and probably would have killed Aidro too if Guts had not been on his journey and showed up just at the right moment and decimated all of them which causes Eidro to be in awe of what he witnessed and seeing Guts in his raw strength and his power and Eidro continues to follow Guts pretty much through the rest of the story until Guts uh agrees to allow companions into his group. So Aedro is always kind of steadily right behind Guts following him on the entire adventure. And you know, I made no um I pulled no punches when I first read the series and said how much I didn't really care for Eidro. didn't really like the idea of this child character being introduced and being here for comic relief and being this kind of little goofball character because I did feel like Puck already kind of served as a lot a large majority of the comic relief. And as time goes on, you know, a lot of the comic relief of Puck does kind of get shifted over to a seedro and then Puck kind of has less and less to do as time goes on. Uh, also just the idea of the kind of story that we're in and the kind of darkness that we're dealing with and that we just had a moment where Guts refused to take Jill along with him because of the type of uh, you know, threats that he's going to encounter and he didn't want her to have to be involved with that. And then soon after we get a character like Aidro that will inadvertently be involved in a lot of that. So, um, at first, you know, I I just wasn't a big fan of Aedro. as time has gone on, you know, and I look back and I reflect on the series, I think that I've definitely warmed up to him. I definitely like him more than I did at the start. But I I I say I think that Aedro for me is a character that I appreciate more than I actually like, more than I actually enjoy. A lot of his humor does fall flat for me. Um, and I I think that he works well as a character that serves as this um, you know, this childhood that Guts never really got to have. and having Guts as a mentor figure now, uh, being able to be a much better and, uh, more compassionate mentor figure than Gambino ever was to Guts. It kind of serves in a way as like breaking those generational curses or those generational traumas where, you know, Guts, even though he can be harsh with the Cedro, he does eventually start training him. He does uh, value him as a member of the group. And so he kind of in a way even though he still can be a hard ass is the complete opposite of how Gambino was with him. So you're kind of correcting the mistakes of the generation before you. Um and having that kind of found father figure and it gives a seedro somebody to look up to, somebody to aspire to be like. Then with Guts taking down the group of Cushian scouts here, he continues forward. And like I said, Aidra starts following him.

[00:05:52]And from the distance, we do get a shot of uh Salat and some of the Bakyaka there. And he decides to stay back because he recognizes Guts. And it kind of begins the great development of Salat's character who is uh starts out as a very minor character, a very uh just a supporting character in the story, but progressively gets more and more important. And the thing that I love about him is that he always is this kind of observer. Like when we first meet him in the golden age, he's very rash. He wants to jump in. He wants to fight. He gets humbled by Guts twice.

[00:06:23]And now this is, you know, two years later or three years later. Two years later, I think. Yeah. And now he's kind of learned his lesson and he sees Guts and he wants to stay back and he wants to observe and he very much becomes the observer of the story. He sees everything happen. Every major event pretty much Salat is there to witness.

[00:06:42]He is going to witness everything that happens at Albon. He's going to witness the incarnation. And then he witnesses the truth about Ganeska. He is there at the uh Astralorld merger. He is there now currently in the manga where we are.

[00:06:57]We're in that kind of hidden village of the Kushan and he's really stepping up to the plate putting down an apostle himself. So, you know, this guy's journey uh even though it kind of steadily happens in the background of the story is really important. And if anything, this guy Salot might have more context for everything that's happening, you know, all the big events that are happening in the world more than any other character because he's the one there to see it. But then, like I said, we spend a lot of time away from Guts.

[00:07:27]We go to Albian and we see all of the refugees and we see the people that are uh you know the poor and the afflicted and how they are all kind of congregating around this tower where you have these members of the Holy Sea, the church, the religion of this world that are living more luxuriously and have a lot more going for them and they are, you know, rationing out things to the poor. But as they uh as the characters are complaining, you know, they get barely more than very watery soup, that it's not distributed very well, that the uh the people in charge don't trust them and are looking for heretics and any of them can be suspected of being heretics.

[00:08:06]And so even though, you know, you would imagine that as the uh the religious institution they would have this banner of trying to help the poor and the discouraged, that they're really not doing anything to help whatsoever and they're just kind of living lavishly themselves. But then, and as I was saying before, why Moskus is pretty much my favorite villain of the series other than Griffith himself is because of how much he believes that what he's doing is the right thing and that he as he is doing everything by the grace of God.

[00:08:34]And that's what's so terrifying is that he believes he has this divine authority on his his side that no matter what kind of action he does, as evil as it looks, that it's all towards the will of God and that he will never question it. He will never question what he is doing or why he's doing it. He just knows that it is for God and this is what's described in the scriptures and this is what he must do. And so he has this kind of um he has these blinders on for every single thing that he does where he just believes that this is the right thing to do. And even further in the uh in the volume where Farese kind of questions if they're doing the right thing and brings this up to him, he's he basically says, "You don't question it." is like this is what faith is. This is what faith means and you will not uh defy it and you will not question it and you will just trust in God's will and you will just blindly follow the institution that's in place and you will never think for yourself and you will never uh try to decide what's right and wrong on your own.

[00:09:35]Everything is decreed here in the scriptures and in our holy books and you can never question it and you can never go against it and that's just the way that it is and it's okay. He says to Farese, uh, "Thou shalt not question God. Whatever blood we spill in spirit or flesh, as man, we continue to exist devoutly for God. That is what faith is about." And you see just this like psychotic look in his face. You know, he talks about um the sage that was in prison here once upon a time. And now a lot of people theorize and I I tend to believe it that the sage was void because Mosus says that at the tower uh that there was a sage that was imprisoned here by King Geyser. He continued to proclaim the sins of the king to God in the midst of every possible torture until in time angels were made to descend. Surely this is a holy ground and it has miraculous value.

[00:10:26]If we're talking about the past, paralleling the present time, if somebody was sent to be tortured, that would be very similar to Griffith being sent to be tortured. If the sage was void and was sent to be tortured, the only interesting thing about that is that in the future of the manga, we get a vision of supposedly the eclipse that happened during King Geyser's time when, you know, Skull Knight died in the Berserker armor and became whatever he is now. uh we see an image of void with the four other godhand that we don't recognize. Assumingly that was the godhand of the previous era, the previous thousand years before this thousand-year um cycle began to take place. Um but we assume that that eclipse happened at what is Falconia and that is how his kingdom fell. And that's what the stories say. They say that, you know, four or five angels showed up and destroyed the city. And you could imagine that it would be four godhand that exists and then the fifth one rises. So that's the confusion of the four and five. Um, and supposedly, you know, void would have been that fifth godhand. Now, this is all just speculation really. None of this has really been confirmed. We've seen bits and pieces as time has gone on. Um, but the thing that kind of throws it off for me here is that uh um Mosus talks about the sage being imprisoned at the Albian Tower and that's where for uh angels came to rescue him. And so that would mean that the sage was not in Falconia when that happened. So if the Falconeia uh portion is the eclipse, then there would have to be some distance traveled in between the sage calling out for the godhand and then going to Geyser's kingdom for the eclipse. Or maybe there is just some subtle confusion there and you know this is not actually the place where he was tortured and this was the place where he was incarnated. Uh a big theory is that you know it went similarly to how things are going with Griffith and there maybe was an incarnation ceremony and maybe that's when they began the Holy Sea religion and then that has persisted over the past thousand years building up and up and then that is uh the thing that kind of takes humanity away from being able to perceive um the elemental kings and the supernatural and everything and gets them more focused onto this like monotheistic religion which gets them believing in the idea of the savior and the hawk of light and everything and pushes everybody towards um that desire and that belief which can eventually bring Griffith to the world. Uh, so you know, all of this was just plans within plans. You know, to to quote Dune, like this is just uh something that's been in the works for, like I said, a thousand years. And if I could just continue with my tin foil hat theories here. I have one that probably is not true, but this is just how I've kind of always viewed it because um we know that eventually Griffith does get incarnated uh back into the world and that's when all of this energy of desire and pain and remor, you know, all these people that have been tortured, all these people that are scared to die, everybody that congregates at the Tower of Conviction at the finale of the ark, and they all simultaneously desire something so strongly, you know, it's able to kind of like will it into the physical realm.

[00:13:49]When that happens, uh we know that the egg of the perfect world swallows the demon child and then that fuses with Griffith and basically becomes his like physical vessel. And it sounds like such a crazy person if no one's ever read Berserk before. Um and then you know that is what uh you know Griffith and the Moonlight Boy share a body because of that. Now, I've always had this tinfoil hat theory because there is a moment right here in the beginning of the conviction arc where all of the kind of poor refugees are asking for help and one mother has a sickly child that she brings up that she wants help for and Mosgus agrees to help the child. And I have always imagined that maybe that child was meant to be the physical vessel for Griffith. And you know that way if it was he never would have had this complication of being with the moonlight boy because when they merge because the moonlight boy already has its own kind of you know metaphysical properties every full moon the boy takes control of the body which has proven to be a detriment for Griffith and perhaps a weakness for Griffith. And with the boy fused into Griffith's body, the boy has affection for its mother, which causes Griffith to time and time again come and save Kaska or, you know, come observe Kaska and all of that stuff. There's no way in my mind, in my opinion, in my opinion, there's no way that the Moonlight Boy merger was not something that uh was a mistake that Griffith did not want to have happen because all it serves is giving Griffith a massive weakness where he loses control of his body periodically and he has kind of the thoughts or he has kind of the the emotion of the Moonlight Boy at particular times, especially when it comes to wanting to protect its mother, protecting Kas.

[00:15:39]So it seems like something you would not want to have if your plan is to rule the world, right? To have this massive weakness. So what if he was actually meant to take like this regular human baby, you know, this innocent vessel that was on the verge of death anyways that would not have had the same kind of properties as the demon child. And if Griffith merged into that, then there wouldn't be any kind of complication. He could probably just have his physical body and that would be that. So maybe, and again, that might not have anything to do with anything. That has just always been my crazy little head cannon, crazy little uh tinfoil hat theory, but I've always thought, okay, so you you have a baby right here that's in the tower, and you know, it's probably going to die regardless. So if if you need a physical body to to be like your physical vessel in the real world, then that would make sense. It's right there, you know, it's up for it's up for grabs.

[00:16:33]But then the egg actually swallows the demon child instead. But then you see the insanity of Mosgus because even though this mother put herself out on a limb to try to save her child and Mosgus respects that and he's going to help the child, he still views her as a sinner and a heretic. And so he still sends her to the torture chamber and I can't show any of these panels on YouTube. That is just the pure blind faith psychosis of Mosgus where he believes that this is God's will. You are still a heretic.

[00:17:01]You're still a sinner. So, we're sending you to the torture chamber. But if you truly believe you have that strong faith in God, don't worry because once I if you get through it, if you make it through it, you'll be fine. Or if you die, you'll go to heaven. It's fine.

[00:17:13]Don't worry about it. It's all within the will of God. Terrifying, terrifying, terrifying stuff. Um, you know, to believe in something so strongly that you're doing the that you believe that you're doing the right thing while actively sending people to be tortured.

[00:17:27]And this is a mother that just tried to do everything that she could to save her child. And you still view her as a hair because for him, Mosgus isn't making the judgment. Mosgus believes that God makes the judgment. He can't decide to send someone to the torture chamber. It's already decided. He's just enacting the will. So, he has this detachment from it is that he don't he doesn't have any kind of emotional connection to what he's doing because he just, you know, he's we see the frustration. We see him slamming his face into the floor and we see his his knees are so wounded from all the years of doing it. There's no individual thought happening in Mosgus.

[00:18:06]It It's just this is the way it is. You don't question it. So, we also meet some other characters in this volume. We get to see Luca, which is, you know, our prostitute with the heart of gold, and she's just trying to do what she can to survive and help the other girls out.

[00:18:19]Everybody that she has working for her, she splits everything up evenly. Uh she really looks out for everyone. She has this very maternal instinct to her. And every one of her girls that are uh here, you know, for uh pleasure and, you know, trying to make some money and trying to to survive and feed themselves and everything else where, you know, this is like the poorest of the poor congregate.

[00:18:42]Um she tries her best to make sure that everything's even for everybody. And she also doesn't want somebody to get um rewarded too much because that could incite others to steal from them or anything. you you don't want to show that you're doing too well. So, she's very very good about keeping everything even for everybody. And she's also the one taking care of Kaska cuz Kaska has wound up here uh with all these refugees. And uh Luca knows that if the Holy Sea or Mosgus or anybody gets a view of Kaska and her mental state because she she's not there uh mentally that they could view her as something evil, something demonic or um possessed or something. And so she's trying to keep her safe. And also, one of Luca's customers is my boy Jerome. Now, if there's any character in the whole story that I want to see again, it's Jerome.

[00:19:32]Jerome is such a a badass because he's just such a real dude. Like, he's just here like doing a job. Okay. Yeah, he works for the uh Holy Iron Chain Knights, but he's just doing it for a job because he's a noble and it is what it is. He doesn't like his boss who's Fernese. Um he doesn't really care about what's going on. He's he just he's just a dude trying to make a living, you know? He's just doing his job, trying to make a living. And he goes to see Luca, and he actually likes Luca, and he's like, you know, when this is over, I'll take you away from this place. And uh, you know, I'm a noble, so I can't make you my bride. But, you know, hey, you could be my mistress, and everything will be cool. I'll take care of you. You know, he's just like he's just that guy.

[00:20:09]And he actually turns out to be a pretty competent fighter, uh, and a pretty loyal dude later on. So, I don't know.

[00:20:15]I've just always liked Jerome. I think he's probably the most underrated character of the whole series. But then we get Nah who is one of the prostitutes and she is dealing with a sickness uh I believe syphilis and so she's very scared she's very terrified and she's taking refuge within the actual heretics. So the interesting thing here too is that you are seeing the two polar extremes. So you see what happens when you know this faith is so strong that you're not allowed to question it.

[00:20:42]you're not allowed to think for yourself and you're not allowed to do what you believe is the right thing because you have to follow the will of the scriptures and how dangerous um and uh you know oppressive that can become. But then you're also seeing the polar opposite of that too where you see these heretics that just embrace impure indulgence. They're having this giant orgy in a cave and they're doing drugs and you got a guy with a goat mask on and it just goes to like a level of insanity where it's like you're embracing your full kind of anim animalistic nature where everybody is just, you know, and Mura's artwork during this scene too. Like I forgot how graphic this actually is. Like you literally see Nah getting like open up, man. Like it's crazy that I don't know what Mero was on when he was drawing these chapters, man. But it gets the point across that you have these two polar opposite extremes. You have this rigid uh religion here that you're not allowed to question that is doing a bunch of evil things in the name of it.

[00:21:37]And then you also have the heretics that just embrace impure physical indulgence and you know depravity that are building things up in in such a dark way that it's literally manifesting an image of slan. And again, I can't really show this panel uh on YouTube, but you know, when the this energy kind of uh culminates and uh compounds upon one another, you know, the god hands sort of are represented in this world. We saw it with Conrad kind of represented with the plague and the rats and the negative energy that is happening there. And then you have this full indulgent energy that is kind of manifesting in the flame showing the image of Slan. But when we very reasonably does not want to kiss the snake penis of the goat man, uh, Nenah immediately turns on him and he she has everybody throw him off of a cliff, which at that point we do find out he does survive later on and they actually get together uh at the end of the arc. And I still, you know, I'm still not over it. I'm still not I I still think, you know, there's there's many things that a girl could do and you can forgive her, right? But when she brings you to a crazy orgy and wants you to kiss a snake penis and then throws you off of a cliff, I feel like I feel like that's okay at that point to not get back together. Anyway, Luca shows up and gives her a spanking and everything, kind of proving that she is like the maternal force of all of the girls here, but unfortunately Kaska is there also.

[00:23:04]And we see Luca witness for the first time all of the spirits that are coming towards Kaska's brand. Basically, Costa being in this location is the worst possible place for her because there's so much negative energy here from all the people that have died from sickness, disease, torture, uh you know, murder, all of these things that have happened here. Like so many so many terrible things have happened here that it's caused like just a massive amount of negative energy and all of these restless souls that have never really been able to pass on. Um, and all of them come towards the branch. And the only thing protecting Kaska right now is the demon child that does show up and it is able to ward off the others. So, the demon child is here. It's following Kaska around. It's trying its best to protect her. And it was the thing that called to guts and basically said, "Kaska is going to be in trouble. Please help her in its own way." So, you know, this is the consistent thing that the demon child has always been uh trying to protect its mom and trying to get towards its mom no matter what. So, like I said, even in the future when Griffith and the demon child merge, um, you know, that causes the moonlight boy to want to go towards its mother and protect its mother, which is a massive weakness for Griffith to have. Finally, we get a conversation between Guts and Skull Knight. When Guts is on his way to the tower, he runs into Skull Knight, who is also on his way there, knowing that this is going to be another important moment and that there's going to be this incarnation ceremony. And so, he's going there to try to do what he does and kill the Godhand or kill, you know, Griffith or whatever he can do. And he basically tells Guts what we know where this mirrors something similar that happened a thousand years ago. So conceivably that could have been an incarnation of void in some way, shape or form that created the Holy Sea. We don't really know. Um but this is like those temporal junctions that Skull Knight knows is going to happen. And so he tries to be there to intervene. And he tells Guts that even though many things are destined and planned, there can always be slight differences and slight things that the Godhand can't predict, such as before with them escaping the eclipse.

[00:24:59]And uh you know, with the the newest chapter that we just got, 384, uh you know, it seemed to be to a lot of people that it was this huge revelation that Guts has always kind of existed in an interstice because he was never meant to be born. He kind of teeters that line between life and death. But I never really I didn't really see that as like a twist or a revelation because I feel like we've kind of talked about it many times throughout the course of the manga. Even right here where Skull Knight says that Guts is like a fish that can breach the water's surface. He can, you know, there's this reflection of what is supposed to happen on the water as like the metaphor and it's going to reflect the moon no matter what. There's not really anything you can do about that. But Guts is like a fish that can jump out of the water and create a ripple and it can change things over a longer period of time. He's able to uh make change happen in this overall plan of causality and he always has been. And I don't feel like that's anything new. And that's something that Skull Knight talks about right here. He literally says um you're outside of the reason of the world and you know maybe you aren't a shadow on the water but instead a fish that breaches the water's surface. And so, you know, what we got in the newest chapter, I feel like with this and with Skull Knight's first introduction to Guts and even just witnessing Guts's birth, um, it's always kind of shown that it's always kind of shown that Guts is somebody that was never meant to have survived, that he's something that should have died but continue to live. Guts is still human, you know, um, but he's just always been on that verge of life and death. So, it just allows him to escape death a little bit uh better than anybody else. And it also allows him to change things because his existence was never really pre-planned like so many others were.

[00:26:44]The fact that he's a character that should be dead but continues to survive and struggle to survive and make the choice to struggle to survive. I mean, that's what makes him, you know, so compelling most of the time is that it would probably be better if he did die.

[00:27:00]but he chooses not to. He has the choice to continue going. And then there's a a final chapter at the end of the volume kind of going into Farice's backstory a little bit. We don't really get a lot of it, but essentially the gist is that she's always kind of grown up in this world being associated with nobles in the Holy Sea. And that when she was a child, uh, the adults kind of egged her on to throw the torch at the heretics and burn them at the stake. And it was something that when that happened, you know, she was feeling valued. She was feeling noticed. And and that's the thing about Farice is that, you know, her father was never around. She kind of grew up in a giant mansion pretty much by herself. So, anytime she can feel validation from somebody or feel like she's doing the right thing or feel like she's helping out, uh, you know, she gets that feeling of of warmth and it kind of like relates to like a sexual feeling also where she's thinking about it and um, you know, she's masturbating as she's looking into the fire and everything and also kind of like getting that release of like I I can't be wrong.

[00:27:58]I can't be in the wrong because she's feeling guilt about these people that are dying. She's feeling guilt about the mother that went to the torture chamber.

[00:28:04]She's the one that asked Mosgus, you know, are we doing the right thing here?

[00:28:08]She's thinking for herself. Um where, you know, everything around her is trying to say, "No, no, no. Don't don't think for yourself. Don't be an individual. Just follow the guidelines.

[00:28:16]Follow exactly what we're telling you to do and don't question it." And she's questioning it. And especially after she saw the real, you know, demonic force.

[00:28:25]Well, Moses is like a real demonic force in some ways, but you know, she saw uh like the the dogs and the horse and all of that stuff when she was with Guts.

[00:28:34]And so, she knows there's something deeper going on here, something darker going on here, and she doesn't want to feel like she's doing the wrong thing.

[00:28:42]So, it's basically like her whole life has led her to believe that she is doing the right thing, that, you know, these heretics are bad. Hunting them down, burning them at the stake, that's good.

[00:28:52]You get praise, you get acceptance, you get cheers, and you get validation from that. But in her heart of heart, she knows what she's doing is wrong. And she's trying to convince herself that I'm not in the wrong. I'm doing the right thing. I'm not in the wrong. I'm doing the right thing. But yeah, that's volume 18 essentially. So, a lot of cool things going on, a lot of world building happening here. I love all the scenes that we get away from Guts. I like just seeing the other characters interact, getting introduced to Luca and Jerome and even Nenah. Even though I hate her, it's just cool to see other characters kind of existing here. Uh what Kaska is up to and then this beginning change in Farese about what she's questioning and we get to see a lot more of the darkness of Moskus. So that is all leading to uh Guts on his way to the tower and he will soon be there uh in the next volume. So um we are getting new chapters of Berserk kind of consistently for the next couple of weeks. So, anytime uh there's a week where there's going to be a new Berserk chapter, I probably won't do a revisited video because I don't want to cause any confusion. But yeah, uh for anybody that doesn't know, I've been doing the revisited series and I'm going to follow through uh through the rest of the volumes. And also, there are some new chapters coming out now. So, if you're behind and you want to catch up, um now is a great time because there's new chapters and there's a lot of uh there's a lot of mixed opinions on them, but I think mostly it's been positive.

[00:30:12]So, yeah, let me know what you guys think of volume 18 down below. Thanks as always for watching, guys. I appreciate it. If you would be so kind. Uh, give the video a like and consider joining the Patreon or becoming a channel member. Even just $1 a month, I would deeply appreciate it. YouTube can be a cruel mistress, so it really helps me out. Um, also check out the channel just in general because I do a lot of content, not just Berserk stuff, so there's a lot of stuff that you guys can check out that you might be interested in. Uh, you know, I talk about film and horror movies and a whole bunch of other stuff, video games, uh, anime in general. So, all that stuff is on there.

[00:30:46]So, check it out if you guys want to.